DASEIN (BTMR)

Category: Heidegger - Being and Time etc
Submitter: Murilo Cardoso de Castro

DASEIN (BTMR)

Dasein

DASEIN is an entity which does not just occur among other entities. Rather it is ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it. But in that case, this is a constitutive state of DASEIN’s Being, and this implies that DASEIN, in its Being, has a relationship towards that Being – a relationship which itself is one of Being. And this means further that there is some way in which DASEIN understands itself in its Being, and that to some degree it does so explicitly. It is peculiar to this entity that with and through its Being, this Being is disclosed to it. Understanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of DASEIN’s Being. DASEIN is ontically distinctive in that it is ontological. BTMR: §4

DASEIN accordingly takes priority over all other entities in several ways. The first priority is an ontical one: DASEIN is an entity whose Being has the determinate character of existence. The second priority is an ontological one: DASEIN is in itself ‘ontological’, because existence is thus determinative for it. But with equal primordiality DASEIN also possesses – as constitutive for its understanding of existence – an understanding of the Being of all entities of a character other than its own. DASEIN has therefore a third priority as providing the ontico-ontological condition for the possibility of any ontologies. Thus DASEIN has turned out to be, more than any other entity, the one which must first be interrogated ontologically. BTMR: §4

If to Interpret the meaning of Being becomes our task, DASEIN is not only the primary entity to be interrogated; it is also that entity which already comports itself in its Being, towards what we are asking about when we ask this question. But in that case the question of Being is nothing other than the radicalization of an essential tendency-of-Being which belongs to DASEIN itself – the pre-ontological understanding of Being. BTMR: §4

In demonstrating that DASEIN is ontico-ontologically prior, we may have misled the reader into supposing that this entity must also be what is given as ontico-ontologically primary not only in the sense that it can itself be grasped ‘immediately’, but also in that the kind of Being which it possesses is presented just as ‘immediately’. Ontically, of course, DASEIN is not only close to us – even that which is closest: we are it, each of us, we ourselves. In spite of this, or rather for just this reason, it is ontologically that which is farthest. To be sure, its ownmost Being is such that it has an understanding of that Being, and already maintains itself in each case as if its Being has been interpreted in some manner. But we are certainly not saying that when DASEIN’s own Being is thus interpreted pre-ontologically in the way which lies closest, this interpretation can be taken over as an appropriate clue, as if this way of understanding Being is what must emerge when one’s ownmost state of Being is considered as an ontological theme. The kind of Being which belongs to DASEIN is rather such that, in understanding its own Being, it has a tendency to do so in terms of that entity towards which it comports itself proximally and in a way which is essentially constant – in terms of the ‘world’. In DASEIN itself, and therefore in its own understanding of Being, the way the world is understood is, as we shall show, reflected back ontologically upon the way in which DASEIN itself gets interpreted. BTMR: §5

Thus because DASEIN is ontico-ontologically prior, its own specific state of Being (if we understand this in the sense of DASEIN’s ‘categorial structure’) remains concealed from it. DASEIN is ontically ‘closest’ to itself and ontologically farthest; but pre-ontologically it is surely not a stranger. BTMR: §5

We have already intimated that DASEIN has a pre-ontological Being as its ontically constitutive state. DASEIN is in such a way as to be something which understands something like Being. Keeping this interconnection firmly in mind, we shall show that whenever DASEIN tacitly understands and interprets something like Being, it does so with time as its standpoint. Time must be brought to light – and genuinely conceived – as the horizon for all understanding of Being and for any way of interpreting it. In order for us to discern this, time needs to be explicated primordially as the horizon for the understanding of Being, and in terms of temporality as the Being of DASEIN, which understands Being. This task as a whole requires that the conception of time thus obtained shall be distinguished from the way in which it is ordinarily understood. This ordinary way of understanding it has become explicit in an interpretation precipitated in the traditional concept of time, which has persisted from Aristotle to Bergson and even later. Here we must make clear that this conception of time and, in general, the ordinary way of understanding it, have sprung from temporality, and we must show how this has come about. We shall thereby restore to the ordinary conception the autonomy which is its rightful due, as against Bergson’s thesis that the time one has in mind in this conception is space. BTMR: §5

All research – and not least that which operates within the range of the central question of Being – is an ontical possibility of DASEIN. DASEIN’s Being finds its meaning in temporality. But temporality is also the condition which makes historicality possible as a temporal kind of Being which DASEIN itself possesses, regardless of whether or how DASEIN is an entity ‘in time’. Historicality, as a determinate character, is prior to what is called "history" (world-historical historizing). BTMR: §6

"Historicality" stands for the state of Being that is constitutive for DASEIN’s ‘historizing’ as such; only on the basis of such ‘historizing’ is anything like ‘world-history’ possible or can anything belong historically to world-history. In its factical Being, any DASEIN is as it already was, and it is ‘what’ it already was. It is its past, whether explicitly or not. And this is so not only in that its past is, as it were, pushing itself along ‘behind’ it, and that DASEIN possesses what is past as a property which is still present-at-hand and which sometimes has after-effects upon it: DASEIN ‘is’ its past in the way of its own Being, which, to put it roughly, ‘historizes’ out of its future on each occasion. Whatever the way of being it may have at the time, and thus with whatever understanding of Being it may possess, DASEIN has grown up both into and in a traditional way of interpreting itself: in terms of this it understands itself proximally and, within a certain range, constantly. By this understanding, the possibilities of its Being are disclosed and regulated. Its own past – and this always means the past of its ‘generation’ – is not something which follows along after DASEIN, but something which already goes ahead of it. BTMR: §6

If this historicality remains hidden from DASEIN, and as long as it so remains, DASEIN is also denied the possibility of historiological inquiry or the discovery of history. If historiology is wanting, this is not evidence against DASEIN’s historicality; on the contrary, as a deficient mode of this state of Being, it is evidence for it. Only because it is ‘historical’ can an era be unhistoriological. BTMR: §6

Our preparatory Interpretation of the fundamental structures of DASEIN with regard to the average kind of Being which is closest to it (a kind of Being in which it is therefore proximally historical as well), will make manifest, however, not only that DASEIN is inclined to fall back upon its world (the world in which it is) and to interpret itself in terms of that world by its reflected light, but also that DASEIN simultaneously falls prey to the tradition of which it has more or less explicitly taken hold. This tradition keeps it from providing its own guidance, whether in inquiring or in choosing. This holds true – and by no means least – for that understanding which is rooted in DASEIN’s ownmost Being, and for the possibility of developing it – namely, for ontological understanding. BTMR: §6

With regard to its subject-matter, phenomenology is the science of the Being of entities – ontology. In explaining the tasks of ontology we found it necessary that there should be a fundamental ontology taking as its theme that entity which is ontologico-ontically distinctive, DASEIN, in order to confront the cardinal problem – the question of the meaning of Being in general. Our investigation itself will show that the meaning of phenomenological description as a method lies in interpretation. The logos of the phenomenology of DASEIN has the character of a hermeneuein, through which the authentic meaning of Being, and also those basic structures of Being which DASEIN itself possesses, are made known to DASEIN’s understanding of Being. The phenomenology of DASEIN is a hermeneutic in the primordial signification of this word, where it designates this business of interpreting. But to the extent that by uncovering the meaning of Being and the basic structures of DASEIN in general we may exhibit the horizon for any further ontological study of those entities which do not have the character of DASEIN, this hermeneutic also becomes a ‘hermeneutic’ in the sense of working out the conditions on which the possibility of any ontological investigation depends. And finally, to the extent that DASEIN, as an entity with the possibility of existence, has ontological priority over every other entity, "hermeneutic", as an interpretation of DASEIN’s Being, has the third and specific sense of an analytic of the existentiality of existence; and this is the sense which is philosophically primary. Then so far as this hermeneutic works out DASEIN’s historicality ontologically as the ontical condition for the possibility of historiology, it contains the roots of what can be called ‘hermeneutic’ only in a derivative sense: the methodology of those humane sciences which are historiological in character. BTMR: §7

2. That Being which is an issue for this entity in its very Being, is in each case mine. Thus DASEIN is never to be taken ontologically as an instance or special case of some genus of entities as things that are present-at-hand. To entities such as these, their Being is ‘a matter of indifference’; or more precisely, they ‘are’ such that their Being can be neither a matter of indifference to them, nor the opposite. Because DASEIN has in each case mineness [Jemeinigkeit], one must always use a personal pronoun when one addresses it: ‘I am’, ‘you are’. BTMR: §9

Furthermore, in each case DASEIN is mine to be in one way or another. DASEIN has always made some sort of decision as to the way in which it is in each case mine [je meines]. That entity which in its Being has this very Being as an issue, comports itself towards its Being as its ownmost possibility. In each case DASEIN is its possibility, and it ‘has’ this possibility, but not just as a property [eigenschaftlich], as something present-at-hand would. And because DASEIN is in each case essentially its own possibility, it can, in its very Being, ‘choose’ itself and win itself; it can also lose itself and never win itself; or only ‘seem’ to do so. But only in so far as it is essentially something which can be authentic – that is, something of its own – can it have lost itself and not yet won itself. As modes of Being, authenticity and inauthenticity (these expressions have been chosen terminologically in a strict sense) are both grounded in the fact that any DASEIN whatsoever is characterized by mineness. But the inauthenticity of DASEIN does not signify any ‘less’ Being or any ‘lower’ degree of Being. Rather it is the case that even in its fullest concretion DASEIN can be characterized by inauthenticity – when busy, when excited, when interested, when ready for joyment. BTMR: §9

The two characteristics of DASEIN which we have sketched – the priority of ‘existentia’ over essentia, and the fact that DASEIN is in each case mine [die Jemeinigkeit] – have already indicated that in the analytic of this entity we are facing a peculiar phenomenal domain. DASEIN does not have the kind of Being which belongs to something merely present-at-hand within the world, nor does it ever have it. So neither is it to be presented thematically as something we come across in the same way as we come across what is present-at-hand. The right way of presenting it is so far from self-evident that to determine what form it shall take is itself an essential part of the ontological analytic of this entity. Only by presenting this entity in the right way can we have any understanding of its Being. No matter how provisional our analysis may be, it always requires the assurance that we have started correctly. BTMR: §9

10. How the Analytic of DASEIN is to be Distinguished from Anthropology, Psychology, and Biology BTMR: §10

This is no less true of ‘psychology’, whose anthropological tendencies are today unmistakable. Nor can we compensate for the absence of ontological foundations by taking anthropology and psychology and building them into the framework of a general biology. In the order which any possible comprehension and interpretation must follow, biology as a ‘science of life’ is founded upon the ontology of DASEIN, even if not entirely. Life, in its own right, is a kind of Being; but essentially it is accessible only in DASEIN. The ontology of life is accomplished by way of a privative Interpretation; it determines what must be the case if there can be anything like mere-aliveness [Nur-noch-leben]. Life is not a mere Being-present-at-hand, nor is it DASEIN. In turn, DASEIN is never to be defined ontologically by regarding it as life (in an ontologically indefinite manner) plus something else. BTMR: §10

The Interpretation of DASEIN in its everydayness, however, is not identical with the describing of some primitive stage of DASEIN with which we can become acquainted empirically through the medium of anthropology: Everydayness does not coincide with primitiveness, but is rather a mode of DASEIN’s Being, even when that DASEIN is active in a highly developed and differentiated culture – and precisely then. Moreover, even primitive DASEIN has possibilities of a Being which is not of the everyday kind, and it has a specific everydayness of its own. To orient the analysis of DASEIN towards the ‘life of primitive peoples’ can have positive significance [Bedeutung] as a method because ‘primitive phenomena’ are often less concealed and less complicated by extensive self-interpretation on the part of the DASEIN in question. Primitive DASEIN often speaks to us more directly in terms of a primordial absorption in ‘phenomena’ (taken in a pre-phenomenological sense). A way of conceiving things which seems, perhaps, rather clumsy and crude from our standpoint, can be positively helpful in bringing out the ontological structures of phenomena in a genuine way. BTMR: §11

IN our preparatory discussions (Section 9) we have brought out some characteristics of Being which will provide us with a steady light for our further investigation, but which will at the same time become structurally concrete as that investigation continues. DASEIN is an entity which, in its very Being, comports itself understandingly towards that Being. In saying this, we are calling attention to the formal concept of existence. DASEIN exists. Furthermore, DASEIN is an entity which in each case I myself am. Mineness belongs to any existent DASEIN, and belongs to it as the condition which makes authenticity and inauthenticity possible. In each case DASEIN exists in one or the other of these two modes, or else it is modally undifferentiated. BTMR: §12

DASEIN understands its ownmost Being in the sense of a certain ‘factual Being-present-at-hand’. And yet the ‘factuality’ of the fact [Tatsache] of one’s own DASEIN is at bottom quite different ontologically from the factual occurrence of some kind of mineral, for example. Whenever DASEIN is, it is as a Fact; and the factuality of such a Fact is what we shall call DASEIN’s "facticity". This is a definite way of Being [Seinsbestimmtheit], and it has a complicated structure which cannot even be grasped as a problem until DASEIN’s basic existential states have been worked out. The concept of "facticity" implies that an entity ‘within-the-world’ has Being-in-the-world in such a way that it can understand itself as bound up in its ‘destiny’ with the Being of those entities which it encounters within its own world. BTMR: §12

From what we have been saying, it follows that Being-in is not a ‘property’ which DASEIN sometimes has and sometimes does not have, and without which it could be just as well as it could with it. It is not the case that man ‘is’ and then has, by way of an extra, a relationship-of-Being towards the ‘world’ – a world with which he provides himself occasionally. DASEIN is never ‘proximally’ an entity which is, so to speak, free from Being-in, but which sometimes has the inclination to take up a ‘relationship’ towards the world. Taking up relationships towards the world is possible only because DASEIN, as Being-in-the-world, is as it is. This state of Being does not arise just because some other entity is present-at-hand outside of DASEIN and meets up with it. Such an entity can ‘meet up with’ DASEIN only in so far as it can, of its own accord, show itself within a world. BTMR: §12

Nowadays there is much talk about ‘man’s having an environment [Umwelt]’; but this says nothing ontologically as long as this ‘having’ is left indefinite. In its very possibility this ‘having’ is founded upon the existential state of Being-in. Because DASEIN is essentially an entity with Being-in, it can explicitly discover those entities which it encounters environmentally, it can know them, it can avail itself of them, it can have the ‘world’. To talk about ‘having an environment’ is ontically trivial, but ontologically it presents a problem. To solve it requires nothing else than defining the Being of DASEIN, and doing so in a way which is ontologically adequate. Although this state of Being is one of which use has made in biology, especially since K. von Baer, one must not conclude that its philosophical use implies ‘biologism’. For the environment is a structure which even biology as a positive science can never find and can never define, but must presuppose and constantly employ. Yet, even as an a priori condition for the objects which biology takes for its theme, this structure itself can be explained philosophically only if it has been conceived beforehand as a structure of DASEIN. Only in terms of an orientation towards the ontological structure thus conceived can ‘life’ as a state of Being be defined a priori, and this must be done in a privative manner. Ontically as well as ontologically, the priority belongs to Being-in-the world as concern. In the analytic of DASEIN this structure undergoes a basic Interpretation. BTMR: §12

When DASEIN directs itself towards something and grasps it, it does not somehow first get out of an inner sphere in which it has been proximally encapsulated, but its primary kind of Being is such that it is always ‘outside’ alongside entities which it encounters and which belong to a world already discovered. Nor is any inner sphere abandoned when DASEIN dwells alongside the entity to be known, and determines its character; but even in this ‘Being-outside’ alongside the object, DASEIN is still ‘inside’, if we understand this in the correct sense; that is to say, it is itself ‘inside’ as a Being-in-the-world which knows. And furthermore, the perceiving of what is known is not a process of returning with one’s booty to the ‘cabinet’ of consciousness after one has gone out and grasped it; even in perceiving, retaining, and preserving, the DASEIN which knows remains outside, and it does so as DASEIN. If I ‘merely’ know [Wissen] about some way in which the Being of entities is interconnected, if I ‘only’ represent them, if I ‘do no more’ than ‘think’ about them, I am no less alongside the entities outside in the world than when I originally grasp them. Even the forgetting of something, in which every relationship of Being towards what one formerly knew has seemingly been obliterated, must be conceived as a modification of the primordial Being-in; and this holds for every delusion and for every error. BTMR: §13

When it comes to the problem of analysing the world’s worldhood ontologically, traditional ontology operates in a blind alley, if, indeed, it sees this problem at all. On the other hand, if we are to Interpret the worldhood of DASEIN and the possible ways in which DASEIN is made worldly [Verweltlichung], we must show why the kind of Being with which DASEIN knows the world is such that it passes over the phenomenon of worldhood both ontically and ontologically. But at the same time the very Fact of this passing-over suggests that we must take special precautions to get the right phenomenal point of departure [Ausgang] for access [Zugang] to the phenomenon of worldhood, so that it will not get passed over. BTMR: §14

The world itself is not an entity within-the-world; and yet it is so determinative for such entities that only in so far as ‘there is’ a world can they be encountered and show themselves, in their Being, as entities which have been discovered. But in what way ‘is there’ a world? If DASEIN is ontically constituted by Being-in-the-World, and if an understanding of the Being of its Self belongs just as essentially to its Being, no matter how indefinite that understanding may be, then does not DASEIN have an understanding of the world – a pre-ontological understanding, which indeed can and does get along without explicit ontological insights? With those entities which are encountered within-the-world – that is to say, with their character as within-the-world – does not something like the world show itself for concernful Being-in-the-world? Do we not have a pre-phenomenological glimpse of this phenomenon? Do we not always have such a glimpse of it, without having to take it as a theme for ontological Interpretation? Has DASEIN itself, in the range of its concernful absorption in equipment ready-to-hand, a possibility of Being in which the worldhood of those entities within-the-world with which it is concerned is, in a certain way, lit up for it, along with those entities themselves? BTMR: §16

Being-in-the-world, according to our Interpretation hitherto, amounts to a non-thematic circumspective absorption in references or assignments constitutive for the readiness-to-hand of a totality of equipment. Any concern is already as it is, because of some familiarity with the world. In this familiarity DASEIN can lose itself in what it encounters within-the-world and be fascinated with it. What is it that DASEIN is familiar with? Why can the worldly character of what is within-the-world be lit up? The presence-at-hand of entities is thrust to the fore by the possible breaks in that referential totality in which circumspection ‘operates’; how are we to get a closer understanding of this totality? BTMR: §16

What do we mean when we say that a sign "indicates"? We can answer this only by determining what kind of dealing is appropriate with equipment for indicating. And we must do this in such a way that the readiness-to-hand of that equipment can be genuinely grasped. What is the appropriate way of having-to-do with signs? Going back to our example of the arrow, we must say that the kind of behaving (Being) which corresponds to the sign we encounter, is either to ‘give way’ or to ‘stand still’ vis-à-vis the car with the arrow. Giving way, as taking a direction, belongs essentially to DASEIN’s Being-in-the-world. DASEIN is always somehow directed [ausgerichtet] and on its way; standing and waiting are only limiting cases of this directional ‘on-its-way’. The sign addresses itself to a Being-in-the-world which is specifically ‘spatial’. The sign is not authentically ‘grasped’ ["erfasst"] if we just stare at it and identify it as an indicator-Thing which occurs. Even if we turn our glance in the direction which the arrow indicates, and look at something present-at-hand in the region indicated, even then the sign is not authentically encountered. Such a sign addresses itself to the circumspection of our concernful dealings, and it does so in such a way that the circumspection which goes along with it, following where it points, brings into an explicit ‘survey’ whatever aroundness the environment may have at the time. This circumspective survey does not grasp the ready-to-hand; what it achieves is rather an orientation within our environment. There is also another way in which we can experience equipment: we may encounter the arrow simply as equipment which belongs to the car. We can do this without discovering what character it specifically has as equipment: what the arrow is to indicate and how it is to do so, may remain completely undetermined; yet what we are encountering is not a mere Thing. The experiencing of a Thing requires a definiteness of its own [ihre eigene Bestimmtheit], and must be contrasted with coming across a manifold of equipment, which may often be quite indefinite, even when one comes across it as especially close. BTMR: §17

But in significance itself, with which DASEIN is always familiar, there lurks the ontological condition which makes it possible for DASEIN, as something which understands and interprets, to disclose such things as ‘significations’; upon these, in turn, is founded the Being of words and of language. BTMR: §18

If we attribute spatiality to DASEIN, then this ‘Being in space’ must manifestly be conceived in terms of the kind of Being which that entity possesses. DASEIN is essentially not a Being-present-at-hand; and its "spatiality" cannot signify anything like occurrence at a position in ‘world-space’, nor can it signify Being-ready-to-hand at some place. Both of these are kinds of Being which belong to entities encountered within-the-world. DASEIN, however, is ‘in’ the world in the sense that it deals with entities encountered within-the-world, and does so concernfully and with familiarity. So if spatiality belongs to it in any way, that is possible only because of this Being-in. But its spatiality shows the characters of de-severance and directionality. BTMR: §23

When we speak of deseverance as a kind of Being which DASEIN has with regard to its Being-in-the-world, we do not understand by it any such thing as remoteness (or closeness) or even a distance. We use the expression "deseverance" in a signification which is both active and transitive. It stands for a constitutive state of DASEIN’s Being – a state with regard to which removing something in the sense of putting it away is only a determinate factical mode. "De-severing" amounts to making the farness vanish – that is, making the remoteness of something disappear, bringing it close. DASEIN is essentially de-severant: it lets any entity be encountered close by as the entity which it is. De-severance discovers remoteness; and remoteness, like distance, is a determinate categorial characteristic of entities whose nature is not that of DASEIN. De-severance, however, is an existentiale; this must be kept in mind. Only to the extent that entities are revealed for DASEIN in their deseveredness [Entferntheit], do ‘remotenesses’ ["Entfernungen"] and distances with regard to other things become accessible in entities within-the-world themselves. Two points are just as little desevered from one another as two Things, for neither of these types of entity has the kind of Being which would make it capable of desevering. They merely have a measurable distance between them, which we can come across in our de-severing. BTMR: §23

When one is primarily and even exclusively oriented towards remotenesses as measured distances, the primordial spatiality of Being-in is concealed. That which is presumably ‘closest’ is by no means that which is at the smallest distance ‘from us’. It lies in that which is desevered to an average extent when we reach for it, grasp it, or look at it. Because DASEIN is essentially spatial in the way of de-severance, its dealings always keep within an ‘environment’ which is desevered from it with a certain leeway [Spielraum]; accordingly our seeing and hearing always go proximally beyond what is distantially ‘closest’. Seeing and hearing are distance-senses [Fernsinne] not because they are far-reaching, but because it is in them that DASEIN as deseverant mainly dwells. When, for instance, a man wears a pair of spectacles which are so close to him distantially that they are ‘sitting on his nose’, they are environmentally more remote from him than the picture on the opposite wall. Such equipment has so little closeness that often it is proximally quite impossible to find. Equipment for seeing – and likewise for hearing, such as the telephone receiver – has what we have designated as the inconspicuousness of the proximally ready-to-hand. So too, for instance, does the street, as equipment for walking. One feels the touch of it at every step as one walks; it is seemingly the closest and Realest of all that is ready-to-hand, and it slides itself; as it were, along certain portions of one’s body – the soles of one’s feet. And yet it is farther remote than the acquaintance whom one encounters ‘on the street’ at a ‘remoteness’ ["Entfernung"] of twenty paces when one is taking such a walk. Circumspective concern decides as to the closeness and farness of what is proximally ready-to-hand environmentally. Whatever this concern dwells alongside beforehand is what is closest, and this is what regulates our de-severances. BTMR: §23

As Being-in-the-world, DASEIN maintains itself essentially in a de-severing. This de-severance – the farness of the ready-to-hand from DASEIN itself – is something that DASEIN can never cross over. Of course the remoteness of something ready-to-hand from DASEIN can show up as a distance from it, if this remoteness is determined by a relation to some Thing which gets thought of as present-at-hand at the place DASEIN has formerly occupied. DASEIN can subsequently traverse the "between" of this distance, but only in such a way that the distance itself becomes one which has been desevered. So little has DASEIN crossed over its de-severance that it has rather taken it along with it and keeps doing so constantly; for DASEIN is essentially de-severance – that is, it is spatial. It cannot wander about within the current range of its de-severances; it can never do more than change them. DASEIN is spatial in that it discovers space circumspectively, so that indeed it constantly comports itself de-severantly towards the entities thus spatially encountered. BTMR: §23

As de-severant Being-in, DASEIN has likewise the character of directionality. Every bringing-close [Näherung] has already taken in advance a direction towards a region out of which what is de-severed brings itself close [sich nähert], so that one can come across it with regard to its place. Circumspective concern is de-severing which gives directionality. In this concern – that is, in the Being-in-the-world of DASEIN itself – a supply of ‘signs’ is presented. Signs, as equipment, take over the giving of directions in a way which is explicit and easily manipulable. They keep explicitly open those regions which have been used circumspectively – the particular "whithers" to which something belongs or goes, or gets brought or fetched. If DASEIN is, it already has, as directing and desevering, its own discovered region. Both directionality and de-severance, as modes of Being-in-the-world, are guided beforehand by the circumspection of concern. BTMR: §23

As Being-in-the-world, DASEIN has already discovered a ‘world’ at any time. This discovery, which is founded upon the worldhood of the world, is one which we have characterized as freeing entities for a totality of involvements. Freeing something and letting it be involved, is accomplished by way of referring or assigning oneself circumspectively, and this in turn is based upon one’s previously understanding significance. We have now shown that circumspective Being-in-the-world is spatial. And only because DASEIN is spatial in the way of de-severance and directionality can what is ready-to-hand within-the-world be encountered in its spatiality. To free a totality of involvements is, equiprimordially, to let something be involved at a region, and to do so by de-severing and giving directionality; this amounts to freeing the spatial belonging-somewhere of the ready-to-hand. In that significance with which DASEIN (as concernful Being-in) is familiar, lies the essential co-disclosedness of space. BTMR: §24

Space is not in the subject, nor is the world in space. Space is rather ‘in’ the world in so far as space has been disclosed by that Being-in-the-world which is constitutive for DASEIN. Space is not to be found in the subject, nor does the subject observe the world ‘as if’ that world were in a space; but the ‘subject’ (DASEIN), if well understood ontologically, is spatial. And because DASEIN is spatial in the way we have described, space shows itself as a priori. This term does not mean anything like previously belonging to a subject which is proximally still worldless and which emits a space out of itself. Here "apriority" means the previousness with which space has been encountered (as a region) whenever the ready-to-hand is encountered environmentally. BTMR: §24

OUR analysis of the worldhood of the world has constantly been bringing the whole phenomenon of Being-in-the-world into view, although its constitutive items have not all stood out with the same phenomenal distinctness as the phenomenon of the world itself. We have Interpreted the world ontologically by going through what is ready-to-hand within-the-world; and this Interpretation has been put first, because DASEIN, in its everydayness (with regard to which DASEIN remains a constant theme for study), not only is in a world but comports itself towards that world with one predominant kind of Being. Proximally and for the most part DASEIN is fascinated with its world. DASEIN is thus absorbed in the world; the kind of Being which it thus possesses, and in general the Being-in which underlies it, are essential in determining the character of a phenomenon which we are now about to study. We shall approach this phenomenon by asking who it is that DASEIN is in its everydayness. All the structures of Being which belong to DASEIN, together with the phenomenon which provides the answer to this question of the "who", are ways of its Being. To characterize these ontologically is to do so existentially. We must therefore pose the question correctly and outline the procedure for bringing into view a broader phenomenal domain of DASEIN’s everydayness. By directing our researches towards the phenomenon which is to provide us with an answer to the question of the "who", we shall be led to certain structures of DASEIN which are equiprimordial with Being-in-the-world: Being-with and Dasein-with [Mitsein und Mitdasein]. In this kind of Being is grounded the mode of everyday Being-one’s-Self [Selbstsein]; the explication of this mode will enable us to see what we may call the ‘subject’ of everydayness – the "they". Our chapter on the ‘who’ of the average DASEIN will thus be divided up as follows: 1. an approach to the existential question of the "who" of DASEIN (Section 25); 2. the Dasein-with of Others, and everyday Being-with (Section 26); 3. everyday Being-one’s-Self and the "they" (Section 27). BTMR: §24

The answer to the question of who DASEIN is, is one that was seemingly given in Section 9, where we indicated formally the basic characteristics of DASEIN. DASEIN is an entity which is in each case I myself; its Being is in each case mine. This definition indicates an ontologically constitutive state, but it does no more than indicate it. At the same time this tells us ontically (though in a rough and ready fashion) that in each case an "I" – not Others – is this entity. The question of the "who" answers itself in terms of the "I" itself, the ‘subject’, the ‘Self’. The "who" is what maintains itself as something identical throughout changes in its Experiences and ways of behaviour, and which relates itself to this changing multiplicity in so doing. Ontologically we understand it as something which is in each case already constantly present-at-hand, both in and for a closed realm, and which lies at the basis, in a very special sense, as the subjectum. As something selfsame in manifold otherness, it has the character of the Self. Even if one rejects the "soul substance" and the Thinghood of consciousness, or denies that a person is an object, ontologically one is still positing something whose Being retains the meaning of present-at-hand, whether it does so explicitly or not. Substantiality is the ontological clue for determining which entity is to provide the answer to the question of the "who". DASEIN is tacitly conceived in advance as something present-at-hand. This meaning of Being is always implicated in any case where the Being of DASEIN has been left indefinite. Yet presence-at-hand is the kind of Being which belongs to entities whose character is not that of DASEIN. BTMR: §25

The assertion that it is I who in each case DASEIN is, is ontically obvious; but this must not mislead us into supposing that the route for an ontological Interpretation of what is ‘given’ in this way has thus been unmistakably prescribed. Indeed it remains questionable whether even the mere ontical content of the above assertion does proper justice to the stock of phenomena belonging to everyday DASEIN. It could be that the "who" of everyday DASEIN just is not the "I myself". BTMR: §25

In this context of an existential analytic of factical DASEIN, the question arises whether giving the "I" in the way we have mentioned discloses DASEIN in its everydayness, if it discloses DASEIN at all. Is it then obvious a priori that access to DASEIN must be gained only by mere reflective awareness of the "I" of actions? What if this kind of ‘giving-itself’ on the part of DASEIN should lead our existential analytic astray and do so, indeed, in a manner grounded in the Being of DASEIN itself? Perhaps when DASEIN addresses itself in the way which is closest to itself; it always says "I am this entity", and in the long run says this loudest when it is ‘not’ this entity. DASEIN is in each case mine, and this is its constitution; but what if this should be the very reason why, proximally and for the most part, DASEIN is not itself? What if the aforementioned approach, starting with the givenness of the "I" to DASEIN itself; and with a rather patent self-interpretation of DASEIN, should lead the existential analytic, as it were, into a pitfall? If that which is accessible by mere "giving" can be determined, there is presumably an ontological horizon for determining it; but what if this horizon should remain in principle undetermined? It may well be that it is always ontically correct to say of this entity that ‘I’ am it. Yet the ontological analytic which makes use of such assertions must make certain reservations about them in principle. The word ‘I’ is to be understood only in the sense of a non-committal formal indicator, indicating something which may perhaps reveal itself as its ‘opposite’ in some particular phenomenal context of Being. In that case, the ‘not-I’ is by no means tantamount to an entity which essentially lacks ‘I-hood’ ["Ichheit"], but is rather a definite kind of Being which the ‘I’ itself possesses, such as having lost itself [Selbstverlorenheit]. BTMR: §25

Just as the ontical obviousness of the Being-in-itself of entities within-the-world misleads us into the conviction that the meaning of this Being is obvious ontologically, and makes us overlook the phenomenon of the world, the ontical obviousness of the fact that DASEIN is in each case mine, also hides the possibility that the ontological problematic which belongs to it has been led astray. Proximally the "who" of DASEIN is not only a problem ontologically; even ontically it remains concealed. BTMR: §25

If in each case DASEIN is its Self only in existing, then the constancy of the Self no less than the possibility of its ‘failure to stand by itself’ requires that we formulate the question existentially and ontologically as the sole appropriate way of access to its problematic. BTMR: §25

The answer to the question of the "who" of everyday DASEIN is to be obtained by analysing that kind of Being in which DASEIN maintains itself proximally and for the most part. Our investigation takes its orientation from Being-in-the-world – that basic state of DASEIN by which every mode of its Being gets co-determined. If we are correct in saying that by the foregoing explication of the world, the remaining structural items of Being-in-the-world have become visible, then this must also have prepared us, in a way, for answering the question of the "who". BTMR: §26

Thus in characterizing the encountering of Others, one is again still oriented by that DASEIN which is in each case one’s own. But even in this characterization does one not start by marking out and isolating the ‘I’ so that one must then seek some way of getting over to the Others from this isolated subject? To avoid this misunderstanding we must notice in what sense we are talking about ‘the Others’. By ‘Others’ we do not mean everyone else but me – those over against whom the "I" stands out. They are rather those from whom, for the most part, one does not distinguish oneself – those among whom one is too. This Being-there-too [Auch-da-sein] with them does not have the ontological character of a Being-present-at-hand-along-‘with’ them within a world. This ‘with’ is something of the character of DASEIN; the ‘too’ means a sameness of Being as circumspectively concernful Being-in-the-world. ‘With’ and ‘too’ are to be understood existentially, not categorially. By reason of this with-like [mithaften] Being-in-the-world, the world is always the one that I share with Others. The world of DASEIN is a with-world [Mitwelt]. Being-in is Being-with Others. Their Being-in-themselves within-the-world is Dasein-with [Mit-dasein]. BTMR: §26

The expression ‘DASEIN’, however, shows plainly that ‘in the first instance’ this entity is unrelated to Others, and that of course it can still be ‘with’ Others afterwards. Yet one must not fail to notice that we use the term "Dasein-with" to designate that Being for which the Others who are [die seienden Anderen] are freed within-the-world. This Dasein-with of the Others is disclosed within-the-world for a DASEIN, and so too for those who are Daseins with us [die Mitdaseienden], only because DASEIN in itself is essentially Being-with. The phenomenological assertion that "DASEIN is essentially Being-with" has an existential-ontological meaning. It does not seek to establish ontically that factically I am not present-at-hand alone, and that Others of my kind occur. If this were what is meant by the proposition that DASEIN’s Being-in-the-world is essentially constituted by Being-with, then Being-with would not be an existential attribute which DASEIN, of its own accord, has coming to it from its own kind of Being. It would rather be something which turns up in every case by reason of the occurrence of Others. Being-with is an existential characteristic of DASEIN even when factically no Other is present-at-hand or perceived. Even DASEIN’s Being-alone is Being-with in the world. The Other can be missing only in and for a Being-with. Being-alone is a deficient mode of Being-with; its very possibility is the proof of this. On the other hand, factical Being-alone is not obviated by the occurrence of a second example of a human being ‘beside’ me, or by ten such examples. Even if these and more are present-at-hand, DASEIN can still be alone. So Being-with and the facticity of Being with one another are not based on the occurrence together of several ‘subjects’. Yet Being-alone ‘among’ many does not mean that with regard to their Being they are merely present-at-hand there alongside us. Even in our Being ‘among them’ they are there with us; their Dasein-with is encountered in a mode in which they are indifferent and alien. Being missing and ‘Being away’ [Das Fehlen und "Fortsein"] are modes of Dasein-with, and are possible only because DASEIN as Being-with lets the DASEIN of Others be encountered in its world. Being-with is in every case a characteristic of one’s own DASEIN; Dasein-with characterizes the DASEIN of Others to the extent that it is freed by its world for a Being-with. Only so far as one’s own DASEIN has the essential structure of Being-with, is it Dasein-with as encounterable for Others. BTMR: §26

But the fact that ‘empathy’ is not a primordial existential phenomenon, any more than is knowing in general, does not mean that there is nothing problematical about it. The special hermeneutic of empathy will have to show how Being-with-one-another and DASEIN’s knowing of itself are led astray and obstructed by the various possibilities of Being which DASEIN itself possesses, so that a genuine ‘understanding’ gets suppressed, and DASEIN takes refuge in substitutes; the possibility of understanding the stranger correctly presupposes such a hermeneutic as its positive existential condition. Our analysis has shown that Being-with is an existential constituent of Being-in-the-world. Dasein-with has proved to be a kind of Being which entities encountered within-the-world have as their own. So far as DASEIN is at all, it has Being-with-one-another as its kind of Being. This cannot be conceived as a summative result of the occurrence of several ‘subjects’. Even to come across a number of ‘subjects’ [einer Anzahl von "Subjekten"] becomes possible only if the Others who are concerned proximally in their Dasein-with are treated merely as ‘numerals’ ["Nummer"]. Such a number of ‘subjects’ gets discovered only by a definite Being-with-and-towards-one-another. This ‘inconsiderate’ Being-with ‘reckons’ ["rechnet"] with the Others without seriously ‘counting on them’ ["auf sie zählt"], or without even wanting to ‘have anything to do’ with them. BTMR: §26

One’s own DASEIN, like the Dasein-with of Others, is encountered proximally and for the most part in terms of the with-world with which we are environmentally concerned. When DASEIN is absorbed in the world of its concern – that is, at the same time, in its Being-with towards Others – it is not itself. Who is it, then, who has taken over Being as everyday Being-with-one-another? BTMR: §26

In these characters of Being which we have exhibited – everyday Being-among-one-another, distantiality, averageness, levelling down, publicness, the disburdening of one’s Being, and accommodation – lies that ‘constancy’ of DASEIN which is closest to us. This "constancy" pertains not to the enduring Being-present-at-hand of something, but rather to DASEIN’s kind of Being as Being-with. Neither the Self of one’s own DASEIN nor the Self of the Other has as yet found itself or lost itself as long as it is [seiend] in the modes we have mentioned. In these modes one’s way of Being is that of inauthenticity and failure to stand by one’s Self. To be in this way signifies no lessening of DASEIN’s facticity, just as the "they", as the "nobody", is by no means nothing at all. On the contrary, in this kind of Being, DASEIN is an ens realissimum, if by ‘Reality’ we understand a Being that has the character of DASEIN. BTMR: §27

The Self of everyday DASEIN is the they-self, which we distinguish from the authentic Self – that is, from the Self which has been taken hold of in its own way [eigens ergriffenen]. As they-self, the particular DASEIN has been dispersed into the "they", and must first find itself. This dispersal characterizes the ‘subject’ of that kind of Being which we know as concernful absorption in the world we encounter as closest to us. If DASEIN is familiar with itself as they-self, this means at the same time that the "they" itself prescribes that way of interpreting the world and Being-in-the-world which lies closest. DASEIN is for the sake of the "they" in an everyday manner, and the "they" itself Articulates the referential context of significance. When entities are encountered, DASEIN’s world frees them for a totality of involvements with which the "they" is familiar, and within the limits which have been established with the "they’s" averageness. Proximally, factical DASEIN is in the with-world, which is discovered in an average way. Proximally, it is not ‘I’, in the sense of my own Self; that ‘am’, but rather the Others, whose way is that of the "they". In terms of the "they", and as the "they", I am ‘given’ proximally to ‘myself’ [mir "selbst"]. Proximally DASEIN is "they", and for the most part it remains so. If DASEIN discovers the world in its own way [eigens] and brings it close, if it discloses to itself its own authentic Being, then this discovery of the ‘world’ and this disclosure of DASEIN are always accomplished as a clearing-away of concealments and obscurities, as a breaking up of the disguises with which DASEIN bars its own way. BTMR: §27

In which direction must we look, if we are to characterize Being-in, as such, phenomenally? We get the answer to this question by recalling what we were charged with keeping phenomenologically in view when we called attention to this phenomenon: Being-in is distinct from the present-at-hand insideness of something present-at-hand ‘in’ something else that is present-at-hand; Being-in is not a characteristic that is effected, or even just elicited, in a present-at-hand subject by the ‘world’s’ Being-present-at-hand; Being-in is rather an essential kind of Being of this entity itself. But in that case, what else is presented with this phenomenon than the commercium which is present-at-hand between a subject present-at-hand and an Object present-at-hand? Such an interpretation would come closer to the phenomenal content if we were to say that DASEIN is the Being of this ‘between’. Yet to take our orientation from this ‘between’ would still be misleading. For with such an orientation we would also be covertly assuming the entities between which this "between", as such, ‘is’, and we would be doing so in a way which is ontologically vague. The "between" is already conceived as the result of the convenientia of two things that are present-at-hand. But to assume these beforehand always splits the phenomenon asunder, and there is no prospect of putting it together again from the fragments. Not only do we lack the ‘cement’; even the ‘schema’ in accordance with which this joining-together is to be accomplished, has been split asunder, or never as yet unveiled. What is decisive for ontology is to prevent the splitting of the phenomenon – in other words, to hold its positive phenomenal content secure. To say that for this we need far-reaching and detailed study, is simply to express the fact that something which was ontically self-evident in the traditional way of treating the ‘problem of knowledge’ has often been ontologically disguised to the point where it has been lost sight of altogether. BTMR: §28

When we talk in an ontically figurative way of the lumen naturale in man, we have in mind nothing other than the existential-ontological structure of this entity, that it is in such a way as to be its "there". To say that it is ‘illuminated’ ["erleuchtet"] means that as Being-in-the-world it is cleared [gelichtet] in itself, not through any other entity, but in such a way that it is itself the clearing. Only for an entity which is existentially cleared in this way does that which is present-at-hand become accessible in the light or hidden in the dark. By its very nature, DASEIN brings its "there" along with it. If it lacks its "there", it is not factically the entity which is essentially DASEIN; indeed, it is not this entity at all. DASEIN is its disclosedness. BTMR: §28

We are to set forth the Constitution of this Being. But in so far as the essence of this entity is existence, the existential proposition, ‘DASEIN is its disclosedness’, means at the same time that the Being which is an issue for this entity in its very Being is to be its ‘there’. In addition to characterizing the primary Constitution of the Being of disclosedness, we will require, in conformity with the course of the analysis, an Interpretation of the kind of Being in which this entity is its "there" in an everyday manner. BTMR: §28

Both the undisturbed equanimity and the inhibited ill-humour of our everyday concern, the way we slip over from one to the other, or slip off into bad moods, are by no means nothing ontologically, even if these phenomena are left unheeded as supposedly the most indifferent and fleeting in DASEIN. The fact that moods can deteriorate [verdorben werden] and change over means simply that in every case DASEIN always has some mood [gestimmt ist]. The pallid, evenly balanced lack of mood [Ungestimmtheit], which is often persistent and which is not to be mistaken for a bad mood, is far from nothing at all. Rather, it is in this that DASEIN becomes satiated with itself. Being has become manifest as a burden. Why that should be, one does not know. And DASEIN cannot know anything of the sort because the possibilities of disclosure which belong to cognition reach far too short a way compared with the primordial disclosure belonging to moods, in which DASEIN is brought before its Being as "there". Furthermore, a mood of elation can alleviate the manifest burden of Being; that such a mood is possible also discloses the burdensome character of DASEIN, even while it alleviates the burden. A mood makes manifest ‘how one is, and how one is faring’ ["wie einem ist und wird"]. In this ‘how one is’, having a mood brings Being to its "there". BTMR: §29

In having a mood, DASEIN is always disclosed moodwise as that entity to which it has been delivered over in its Being; and in this way it has been delivered over to the Being which, in existing, it has to be. "To be disclosed" does not mean "to be known as this sort of thing". And even in the most indifferent and inoffensive everydayness the Being of DASEIN can burst forth as a naked ‘that it is and has to be’ [als nacktes "Dass es es ist und zu sein hat"].The pure ‘that it is’ shows itself, but the "whence" and the "whither" remain in darkness. The fact that it is just as everyday a matter for DASEIN not to ‘give in’ ["nachgibt"] to such moods – in other words, not to follow up [nachgeht] their disclosure and allow itself to be brought before that which is disclosed – is no evidence against the phenomenal facts of the case, in which the Being of the "there" is disclosed moodwise in its "that-it-is"; it is rather evidence for it. In an ontico-existentiell sense, DASEIN for the most part evades the Being which is disclosed in the mood. In an ontologico-existential sense, this means that even in that to which such a mood pays no attention, DASEIN is unveiled in its Being-delivered-over to the "there". In the evasion itself the "there" is something disclosed. BTMR: §29

An entity of the character of DASEIN is its "there" in such a way that, whether explicitly or not, it finds itself [sich befindet] in its thrownness. In a state-of-mind DASEIN is always brought before itself, and has always found itself, not in the sense of coming across itself by perceiving itself, but in the sense of finding itself in the mood that it has. As an entity which has been delivered over to its Being, it remains also delivered over to the fact that it must always have found itself – but found itself in a way of finding which arises not so much from a direct seeking as rather from a fleeing. The way in which the mood discloses is not one in which we look at thrownness, but one in which we turn towards or turn away [An- und Abkehr]. For the most part the mood does not turn towards the burdensome character of DASEIN which is manifest in it, and least of all does it do so in the mood of elation when this burden has been alleviated. It is always by way of a state-of-mind that this turning-away is what it is. BTMR: §29

Phenomenally, we would wholly fail to recognize both what mood discloses and how it discloses, if that which is disclosed were to be compared with what DASEIN is acquainted with, knows, and believes ‘at the same time’ when it has such a mood. Even if DASEIN is ‘assured’ in its belief about its ‘whither’, or if, in rational enlightenment, it supposes itself to know about its "whence", all this counts for nothing as against the phenomenal facts of the case: for the mood brings DASEIN before the "that-it-is" of its "there", which, as such, stares it in the face with the inexorability of an enigma. From the existential-ontological point of view, there is not the slightest justification for minimizing what is ‘evident’ in states-of-mind, by measuring it against the apodictic certainty of a theoretical cognition of something which is purely present-at-hand. However the phenomena are no less falsified when they are banished to the sanctuary of the irrational. When irrationalism, as the counterplay of rationalism, talks about the things to which rationalism is blind, it does so only with a squint. BTMR: §29

Factically, DASEIN can, should, and must, through knowledge and will, become master of its moods; in certain possible ways of existing, this may signify a priority of volition and cognition. Only we must not be misled by this into denying that ontologically mood is a primordial kind of Being for DASEIN, in which DASEIN is disclosed to itself prior to all cognition and volition, and beyond their range of disclosure. And furthermore, when we master a mood, we do so by way of a counter-mood; we are never free of moods. Ontologically, we thus obtain as the first essential characteristic of states-of-mind that they disclose DASEIN in its thrownness, and – proximally and for the most part – in the manner of an evasive turning-away. BTMR: §29

A state-of-mind is a basic existential way in which DASEIN is its "there". It not only characterizes DASEIN ontologically, but, because of what it discloses, it is at the same time methodologically significant in principle for the existential analytic. Like any ontological Interpretation whatsoever, this analytic can only, so to speak, "listen in" to some previously disclosed entity as regards its Being. And it will attach itself to DASEIN’s distinctive and most far-reaching possibilities of disclosure, in order to get information about this entity from these. Phenomenological Interpretation must make it possible for DASEIN itself to disclose things primordially; it must, as it were, let DASEIN interpret itself. Such Interpretation takes part in this disclosure only in order to raise to a conceptual level the phenomenal content of what has been disclosed, and to do so existentially. BTMR: §29

That which fear fears about is that very entity which is afraid – DASEIN. Only an entity for which in its Being this very Being is an issue, can be afraid. Fearing discloses this entity as endangered and abandoned to itself. Fear always reveals DASEIN in the Being of its "there", even if it does so in varying degrees of explicitness. If we fear about our house and home, this cannot be cited as an instance contrary to the above definition of what we fear about; for as Being-in-the-world, DASEIN is in every case concernful Being-alongside. Proximally and for the most part, DASEIN is in terms of what it is concerned with. When this is endangered, Being-alongside is threatened. Fear discloses DASEIN predominantly in a privative way. It bewilders us and makes us ‘lose our heads’. Fear closes off our endangered Being-in, and yet at the same time lets us see it, so that when the fear has subsided, DASEIN must first find its way about again. BTMR: §30

We have, after all, already come up against this primordial understanding in our previous investigations, though we did not allow it to be included explicitly in the theme under discussion. To say that in existing, DASEIN is its "there", is equivalent to saying that the world is ‘there’; its Being-there is Being-in. And the latter is likewise ‘there’, as that for the sake of which DASEIN is. In the "for-the-sake-of-which", existing Being-in-the-world is disclosed as such, and this disclosedness we have called "understanding". In the understanding of the "for-the-sake-of-which", the significance which is grounded therein, is disclosed along with it. The disclosedness of understanding, as the disclosedness of the "for-the-sake-of-which" and of significance equiprimordially, pertains to the entirety of Being-in-the-world. Significance is that on the basis of which the world is disclosed as such. To say that the "for-the-sake-of-which" and significance are both disclosed in DASEIN, means that DASEIN is that entity which, as Being-in-the-world, is an issue for itself. BTMR: §31

When we are talking ontically we sometimes use the expression ‘understanding something’ with the signification of ‘being able to manage something’, ‘being a match for it’, ‘being competent to do something’. In understanding, as an existentiale, that which we have such competence over is not a "what", but Being as existing. The kind of Being which DASEIN has, as potentiality-for-Being, lies existentially in understanding. DASEIN is not something present-at-hand which possesses its competence for something by way of an extra; it is primarily Being-possible. DASEIN is in every case what it can be, and in the way in which it is its possibility. The Being-possible which is essential for DASEIN, pertains to the ways of its solicitude for Others and of its concern with the ‘world’, as we have characterized them; and in all these, and always, it pertains to DASEIN’s potentiality-for-Being towards itself, for the sake of itself. The Being-possible which DASEIN is existentially in every case, is to be sharply distinguished both from empty logical possibility and from the contingency of something present-at-hand, so far as with the present-at-hand this or that can ‘come to pass’. As a modal category of presence-at-hand, possibility signifies what is not yet actual and what is not at any time necessary. It characterizes the merely possible. Ontologically it is on a lower level than actuality and necessity. On the other hand, possibility as an existentiale is the most primordial and ultimate positive way in which DASEIN is characterized ontologically. As with existentiality in general, we can, in the first instance, only prepare for the problem of possibility. The phenomenal basis for seeing it at all is provided by the understanding as a disclosive potentiality-for-Being. BTMR: §31

Possibility, as an existentiale, does not signify a free-floating potentiality-for-Being in the sense of the ‘liberty of indifference’ (libertas indifferentiae). In every case DASEIN, as essentially having a state-of-mind, has already got itself into definite possibilities. As the potentiality-for-Being which is is, it has let such possibilities pass by; it is constantly waiving the possibilities of its Being, or else it seizes upon them and makes mistakes. But this means that DASEIN is Being-possible which has been delivered over to itself – thrown possibility through and through. DASEIN is the possibility of Being-free for its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. Its Being-possible is transparent to itself in different possible ways and degrees. BTMR: §31

Understanding is the Being of such potentiality-for-Being, which is never something still outstanding as not yet present-at-hand, but which, as something which is essentially never present-at-hand, ‘is’ with the Being of DASEIN, in the sense of existence. DASEIN is such that in every case it has understood (or alternatively, not understood) that it is to be thus or thus. As such understanding it ‘knows’ what it is capable of – that is, what its potentiality-for-Being is capable of. This ‘knowing’ does not first arise from an immanent self-perception, but belongs to the Being of the "there", which is essentially understanding. And only because DASEIN, in understanding, is its "there", can it go astray and fail to recognize itself. And in so far as understanding is accompanied by state-of-mind and as such is existentially surrendered to thrownness, DASEIN has in every case already gone astray and failed to recognize itself. In its potentiality-for-Being it is therefore delivered over to the possibility of first finding itself again in its possibilities. BTMR: §31

Why does the understanding – whatever may be the essential dimensions of that which can be disclosed in it – always press forward into possibilities? It is because the understanding has in itself the existential structure which we call "projection". With equal primordiality the understanding projects DASEIN’s Being both upon its "for-the-sake-of-which" and upon significance, as the worldhood of its current world. The character of understanding as projection is constitutive for Being-in-the-world with regard to the disclosedness of its existentially constitutive state-of-Being by which the factical potentiality-for-Being gets its leeway [Spielraum]. And as thrown, DASEIN is thrown into the kind of Being which we call "projecting". Projecting has nothing to do with comporting oneself towards a plan that has been thought out, and in accordance with which DASEIN arranges its Being. On the contrary, any DASEIN has, as DASEIN, already projected itself; and as long as it is, it is projecting. As long as it is, DASEIN always has understood itself and always will understand itself in terms of possibilities. Furthermore, the character of understanding as projection is such that the understanding does not grasp thematically that upon which it projects – that is to say, possibilities. Grasping it in such a manner would take away from what is projected its very character as a possibility, and would reduce it to the given contents which we have in mind; whereas projection, in throwing, throws before itself the possibility as possibility, and lets it be as such. As projecting, understanding is the kind of Being of DASEIN in which it is its possibilities as possibilities. BTMR: §31

Because of the kind of Being which is constituted by the existentiale of projection, DASEIN is constantly ‘more’ than it factually is, supposing that one might want to make an inventory of it as something-at-hand and list the contents of its Being, and supposing that one were able to do so. But DASEIN is never more than it factically is, for to its facticity its potentiality-for-Being belongs essentially. Yet as Being-possible, moreover, DASEIN is never anything less; that is to say, it is existentially that which, in its potentiality-for-Being, it is not yet. Only because the Being of the "there" receives its Constitution through understanding and through the character of understanding as projection, only because it is what it becomes (or alternatively, does not become), can it say to itself ‘Become what you are’, and say this with understanding. BTMR: §31

In its projective character, understanding goes to make up existentially what we call DASEIN’s "sight" [Sicht]. With the disclosedness of the "there", this sight is existentially [existenzial seiende]; and DASEIN is this sight equiprimordially in each of those basic ways of its Being which we have already noted: as the circumspection [Umsicht] of concern, as the considerateness [Rücksicht] of solicitude, and as that sight which is directed upon Being as such [Sicht auf das Sein als solches], for the sake of which any DASEIN is as it is. The sight which is related primarily and on the whole to existence we call "transparency" [Durchsichiigkeit]. We choose this term to designate ‘knowledge of the Self in a sense which is well understood, so as to indicate that here it is not a matter of perceptually tracking down and inspecting a point called the "Self", but rather one of seizing upon the full disclosedness of Being-in-the-world throughout all the constitutive items which are essential to it, and doing so with understanding. In existing, entities sight ‘themselves’ [sichtet "sich"] only in so far as they have become transparent to themselves with equal primordiality in those items which are constitutive for their existence: their Being-alongside the world and their Being-with Others. BTMR: §31

As an existential state in which DASEIN is disclosed, discourse is constitutive for DASEIN’s existence. Hearing and keeping silent [Schweigen] are possibilities belonging to discursive speech. In these phenomena the constitutive function of discourse for the existentiality of existence becomes entirely plain for the first time. But in the first instance the issue is one of working out the structure of discourse as such. BTMR: §34

We can make clear the connection of discourse with understanding and intelligibility by considering an existential possibility which belongs to talking itself – hearing. If we have not heard ‘aright’, it is not by accident that we say we have not ‘understood’. Hearing is constitutive for discourse. And just as linguistic utterance is based on discourse, so is acoustic perception on hearing. Listening to... is DASEIN’s existential way of Being-open as Being-with for Others. Indeed, hearing constitutes the primary and authentic way in which DASEIN is open for its ownmost potentiality-for-Being – as in hearing the voice of the friend whom every DASEIN carries with it. DASEIN hears, because it understands. As a Being-in-the-world with Others, a Being which understands, DASEIN is ‘in thrall’ to Dasein-with and to itself; and in this thraldom it "belongs" to these. Being-with develops in listening to one another [Aufeinander-hören], which can be done in several possible ways: following, going along with, and the privative modes of not-hearing, resisting, defying, and turning away. BTMR: §34

In going back to the existential structures of the disclosedness of Being-in-the-world, our Interpretation has, in a way, lost sight of DASEIN’s everydayness. In our analysis, we must now regain this phenomenal horizon which was our thematical starting-point. The question now arises: what are the existential characteristics of the disclosedness of Being-in-the-world, so far as the latter, as something which is everyday, maintains itself in the kind of Being of the "they"? Does the "they" have a state-of-mind which is specific to it, a special way of understanding, talking, and interpreting? It becomes all the more urgent to answer these questions when we remember that proximally and for the most part DASEIN is absorbed in the "they" and is mastered by it. Is not DASEIN, as thrown Being-in-the-world, thrown proximally right into the publicness of the "they"? And what does this publicness mean, other than the specific disclosedness of the "they"? BTMR: §34

The expression ‘idle talk’ ["Gerede"] is not to be used here in a ‘disparaging’ signification. Terminologically, it signifies a positive phenomenon which constitutes the kind of Being of everyday DASEIN’s understanding and interpreting. For the most part, discourse is expressed by being spoken out, and has always been so expressed; it is language. But in that case understanding and interpretation already lie in what has thus been expressed. In language, as a way things have been expressed or spoken out [Ausgesprochenheit],there is hidden a way in which the understanding of DASEIN has been interpreted. This way of interpreting it is no more just present-at-hand than language is; on the contrary, its Being is itself of the character of DASEIN. Proximally, and with certain limits, DASEIN is constantly delivered over to this interpretedness, which controls and distributes the possibilities of average understanding and of the state-of-mind belonging to it. The way things have been expressed or spoken out is such that in the totality of contexts of signification into which it has been articulated, it preserves an understanding of the disclosed world and therewith, equiprimordially, an understanding of the Dasein-with of Others and of one’s own Being-in. The understanding which has thus already been "deposited" in the way things have been expressed, pertains just as much to any traditional discoveredness of entities which may have been reached, as it does to one’s current understanding of Being and to whatever possibilities and horizons for fresh interpretation and conceptual Articulation may be available. But now we must go beyond a bare allusion to the Fact of this interpretedness of DASEIN, and must inquire about the existential kind of Being of that discourse which is expressed and which expresses itself. If this cannot be conceived as something present-at-hand, what is its Being, and what does this tell us in principle about DASEIN’s everyday kind of Being? BTMR: §35

When curiosity has become free, however, it concerns itself with seeing, not in order to understand what is seen (that is, to come into a Being towards it) but just in order to see. It seeks novelty only in order to leap from it anew to another novelty. In this kind of seeing, that which is an issue for care does not lie in grasping something and being knowingly in the truth; it lies rather in its possibilities of abandoning itself to the world. Therefore curiosity is characterized by a specific way of not tarrying alongside what is closest. Consequently it does not seek the leisure of tarrying observantly, but rather seeks restlessness and the excitement of continual novelty and changing encounters. In not tarrying, curiosity is concerned with the constant possibility of distraction. Curiosity has nothing to do with observing entities and marvelling at them – thaumazein. To be amazed to the point of not understanding is something in which it has no interest. Rather it concerns itself with a kind of knowing, but just in order to have known. Both this not tarrying in the environment with which one concerns oneself, and this distraction by new possibilities, are constitutive items for curiosity; and upon these is founded the third essential characteristic of this phenomenon, which we call the character of "never dwelling anywhere" [Aufenthaltslosigkeit]. Curiosity is everywhere and nowhere. This mode of Being-in-the-world reveals a new kind of Being of everyday DASEIN – a kind in which DASEIN is constantly uprooting itself. BTMR: §36

Idle talk controls even the ways in which one may be curious. It says what one "must" have read and seen. In being everywhere and nowhere, curiosity is delivered over to idle talk. These two everyday modes of Being for discourse and sight are not just present-at-hand side by side in their tendency to uproot, but either of these ways-to-be drags the other one with it. Curiosity, for which nothing is closed off, and idle talk, for which there is nothing that is not understood, provide themselves (that is, the DASEIN which is in this manner [dem so seienden DASEIN]) with the guarantee of a ‘life’ which, supposedly, is genuinely ‘lively’. But with this supposition a third phenomenon now shows itself, by which the disclosedness of everyday DASEIN is characterized. BTMR: §36

Even supposing that what "they" have surmised and scented out should some day be actually translated into deeds, ambiguity has already taken care that interest in what has been Realised will promptly die away. Indeed this interest persists, in a kind of curiosity and idle talk, only so long as there is a possibility of a non-committal just-surmising-with-someone-else. Being "in on it" with someone [das Mit-dabei-sein] when one is on the scent, and so long as one is on it, precludes one’s allegiance when what has been surmised gets carried out. For in such a case DASEIN is in every case forced back on itself. Idle talk and curiosity lose their power, and are already exacting their penalty. When confronted with the carrying-through of what "they" have surmised together, idle talk readily establishes that "they" "could have done that too" – for "they" have indeed surmised it together. In the end, idle talk is even indignant that what it has surmised and constantly demanded now actually happens. In that case, indeed, the opportunity to keep on surmising has been snatched away. BTMR: §37

In the ambiguity of the way things have been publicly interpreted, talking about things ahead of the game and making surmises about them curiously, gets passed off as what is really happening, while taking action and carrying something through get stamped as something merely subsequent and unimportant. Thus DASEIN’s understanding in the "they" is constantly going wrong [versieht sich] in its projects, as regards the genuine possibilities of Being. DASEIN is always ambiguously ‘there’ – that is to say, in that public disclosedness of Being-with-one-another where the loudest idle talk and the most ingenious curiosity keep ‘things moving’, where, in an everyday manner, everything (and at bottom nothing) is happening. BTMR: §37

Idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity characterize the way in which, in an everyday manner, DASEIN is its ‘there’ – the disclosedness of Being-in-the-world. As definite existential characteristics, these are not present-at-hand in DASEIN, but help to make up its Being. In these, and in the way they are interconnected in their Being, there is revealed a basic kind of Being which belongs to everydayness; we call this the "falling" of DASEIN. BTMR: §38

This term does not express any negative evaluation, but is used to signify that DASEIN is proximally and for the most part alongside the ‘world’ of its concern. This "absorption in..." [Aufgehen bei...] has mostly the character of Being-lost in the publicness of the "they". DASEIN has, in the first instance, fallen away [abgefallen] from itself as an authentic potentiality for Being its Self, and has fallen into the ‘world’. "Fallenness" into the ‘world’ means an absorption in Being-with-one-another, in so far as the latter is guided by idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity. Through the Interpretation of falling, what we have called the "inauthenticity" of DASEIN may now be defined more precisely. On no account, however, do the terms "inauthentic" and "non-authentic" signify ‘really not’, as if in this mode of Being, DASEIN were altogether to lose its Being. "Inauthenticity" does not mean anything like Being-no-longer-in-the-world, but amounts rather to a quite distinctive kind of Being-in-the-world – the kind which is completely fascinated by the world and by Dasein-with of Others in the "they". Not-Being-its-self [Das Nicht-es-selbst-sein] functions as a positive possibility of that entity which, in its essential concern, is absorbed in a world. This kind of not-Being has to be conceived as that kind of Being which is closest to DASEIN and in which DASEIN maintains itself for the most part. BTMR: §38

If the existential analytic of DASEIN is to retain clarity in principle as to its function in fundamental ontology, then in order to master its provisional task of exhibiting DASEIN’s Being, it must seek for one of the most far-reaching and most primordial possibilities of disclosure – one that lies in DASEIN itself. The way of disclosure in which DASEIN brings itself before itself must be such that in it DASEIN becomes accessible as simplified in a certain manner. With what is thus disclosed, the structural totality of the Being we seek must then come to light in an elemental way. BTMR: §39

Thus our preparatory fundamental analysis of DASEIN will conclude with the following themes: the basic state-of-mind of anxiety as a distinctive way in which DASEIN is disclosed (Section 40); DASEIN’s Being as care (Section 41); the confirmation of the existential Interpretation of DASEIN as care in terms of DASEIN’s pre-ontological way of interpreting itself (Section 42); DASEIN, worldhood, and Reality (Section 43); DASEIN, disclosedness, and truth (Section 44). BTMR: §39

40. The Basic State-of-mind of Anxiety as a Distinctive Way in which DASEIN is Disclosed BTMR: §40

After all, the mood of uncanniness remains, factically, something for which we mostly have no existentiell understanding. Moreover, under the ascendancy of falling and publicness, ‘real’ anxiety is rare. Anxiety is often conditioned by ‘physiological’ factors. This fact, in its facticity, is a problem ontologically, not merely with regard to its ontical causation and course of development. Only because DASEIN is anxious in the very depths of its Being, does it become possible for anxiety to be elicited physiologically. BTMR: §40

Of course it is essential to every state-of-mind that in each case Being-in-the-world should be fully disclosed in all those items which are constitutive for it – world, Being-in, Self. But in anxiety there lies the possibility of a disclosure which is quite distinctive; for anxiety individualizes. This individualization brings DASEIN back from its falling, and makes manifest to it that authenticity and inauthenticity are possibilities of its Being. These basic possibilities of DASEIN (and DASEIN is in each case mine) show themselves in anxiety as they are in themselves – undisguised by entities within-the-world, to which, proximally and for the most part, DASEIN clings. BTMR: §40

DASEIN is an entity for which, in its Being, that Being is an issue. The phrase ‘is an issue’ has been made plain in the state-of-Being of understanding – of understanding as self-projective Being towards its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. This potentiality is that for the sake of which any DASEIN is as it is. In each case DASEIN has already compared itself, in its Being, with a possibility of itself. Being-free for one’s ownmost potentiality-for-Being, and therewith for the possibility of authenticity and inauthenticity, is shown, with a primordial, elemental concreteness, in anxiety. But ontologically, Being towards one’s ownmost potentiality-for-Being means that in each case DASEIN is already ahead of itself [ihm selbst… vorweg] in its Being. DASEIN is always ‘beyond itself’ ["über sich hinaus"], not as a way of behaving towards other entities which it is not, but as Being towards the potentiality-for-Being which it is itself. This structure of Being, which belongs to the essential ‘is an issue’, we shall denote as DASEIN’s "Being-ahead-of-itself". BTMR: §41

In Being-ahead-of-oneself as Being towards one’s ownmost potentiality-for-Being, lies the existential-ontological condition for the possibility of Being-free for authentic existentiell possibilities. For the sake of its potentiality-for-Being, any DASEIN is as it factically is. But to the extent that this Being towards its potentiality-for-Being is itself characterized by freedom, DASEIN can comport itself towards its possibilities, even unwillingly; it can be inauthentically; and factically it is inauthentically, proximally and for the most part. The authentic "for-the-sake-of-which" has not been taken hold of; the projection of one’s own potentiality-for-Being has been abandoned to the disposal of the "they". Thus when we speak of "Being-ahead-of-itself", the ‘itself’ which we have in mind is in each case the Self in the sense of the they-self. Even in inauthenticity DASEIN remains essentially ahead of itself, just as DASEIN’s fleeing in the face of itself as it falls, still shows that it has the state-of-Being of an entity for which its Being is an issue. BTMR: §41

That very potentiality-for-Being for the sake of which DASEIN is, has Being-in-the-world as its kind of Being. Thus it implies ontologically a relation to entities within-the-world. Care is always concern and solicitude, even if only privatively. In willing, an entity which is understood – that is, one which has been projected upon its possibility – gets seized upon, either as something with which one may concern oneself, or as something which is to be brought into its Being through solicitude. Hence, to any willing there belongs something willed, which has already made itself definite in terms of a "for-the-sake-of-which". If willing is to be possible ontologically, the following items are constitutive for it: the prior disclosedness of the "for-the-sake-of-which" in general (Being-ahead-of-itself); the disclosedness of something with which one can concern oneself (the world as the "wherein" of Being-already); DASEIN’s projection of itself understandingly upon a potentiality-for-Being towards a possibility of the entity ‘willed’. In the phenomenon of willing, the underlying totality of care shows through. BTMR: §41

On the other hand, the urge ‘to live’ is something ‘towards’ which one is impelled, and it brings the impulsion along with it of its own accord. It is ‘towards this at any price’. The urge seeks to crowd out [verdrängen] other possibilities. Here too the Being-ahead-of-oneself is one that is inauthentic, even if one is assailed by an urge coming from the very thing that is urging one on. The urge can outrun one’s current state-of-mind and one’s understanding. But then DASEIN is not – and never is – a ‘mere urge’ to which other kinds of controlling or guiding behaviour are added from time to time; rather, as a modification of the entirety of Being-in-the-world, it is always care already. BTMR: §41

We must bear in mind, however, that in this document DASEIN is expressing itself ‘primordially’, unaffected by any theoretical Interpretation and without aiming to propose any. We must also note that DASEIN’s Being is characterized by historicality, though this must first be demonstrated ontologically. If DASEIN is ‘historical’ in the very depths of its Being, then a deposition [Aussage] which comes from its history and goes back to it, and which, moreover, is prior to any scientific knowledge, will have especial weight, even though its importance is never purely ontological. That understanding of Being which lies in DASEIN itself, expresses itself pre-ontologically. The document which we are about to cite should make plain that our existential Interpretation is not a mere fabrication, but that as an ontological ‘construction’ it is well grounded and has been sketched out beforehand in elemental ways. BTMR: §42

The transcendental ‘generality’ of the phenomenon of care and of all fundamental existentialia is, on the other hand, broad enough to present a basis on which every interpretation of DASEIN which is ontical and belongs to a world-view must move, whether DASEIN is understood as affliction [Not] and the ‘cares of life’ or in an opposite manner. BTMR: §42

Thus, by our ontological Interpretation of DASEIN, we have been brought to the existential conception of care from DASEIN’s pre-ontological interpretation of itself as ‘care’. Yet the analytic of DASEIN is not aimed at laying an ontological basis for anthropology; its purpose is one of fundamental ontology. This is the purpose that has tacitly determined the course of our considerations hitherto, our selection of phenomena, and the limits to which our analysis may proceed. Now, however, with regard to our leading question of the meaning of Being and our way of working this out, our investigation must give us explicit assurance as to what we have so far achieved. But this sort of thing is not to be reached by superficially taking together what we have discussed. Rather, with the help of what we have achieved, that which could be indicated only crudely at the beginning of the existential analytic, must now be concentrated into a more penetrating understanding of the problem. BTMR: §42

The ‘scandal of philosophy’ is not that this proof has yet to be given, but that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again. Such expectations, aims, and demands arise from an ontologically inadequate way of starting with something of such a character that independently of it and ‘outside’ of it a ‘world’ is to be proved as present-at-hand. It is not that the proofs are inadequate, but that the kind of Being of the entity which does the proving and makes requests for proofs has not been made definite enough. This is why a demonstration that two things which are present-at-hand are necessarily present-at-hand together, can give rise to the illusion that something has been proved, or even can be proved, about DASEIN as Being-in-the-world. If DASEIN is understood correctly, it defies such proofs, because, in its Being, it already is what subsequent proofs deem necessary to demonstrate for it. BTMR: §43

Of course only as long as DASEIN is (that is, only as long as an understanding of Being is ontically possible), ‘is there’ Being. When DASEIN does not exist, ‘independence’ ‘is’ not either, nor ‘is’ the ‘in-itself’. In such a case this sort of thing can be neither understood nor not understood. In such a case even entities within-the-world can neither be discovered nor lie hidden. In such a case it cannot be said that entities are, nor can it be said that they are not. But now, as long as there is an understanding of Being and therefore an understanding of presence-at-hand, it can indeed be said that in this case entities will still continue to be. BTMR: §43

As we have noted, Being (not entities) is dependent upon the understanding of Being; that is to say, Reality (not the Real) is dependent upon care. By this dependency our further analytic of DASEIN is held secure in the face of an uncritical Interpretation which nevertheless keeps urging itself upon us – an Interpretation in which the idea of Reality is taken as the clue to DASEIN. Only if we take our orientation from existentiality as Interpreted in an ontologically positive manner, can we have any guarantee that in the factical course of the analysis of ‘consciousness’ or of ‘life’, some sense of "Reality" does not get made basic, even if it is one which has not been further differentiated. BTMR: §43

Our earlier analysis of the worldhood of the world and of entities within-the-world has shown, however, that the uncoveredness of entities within-the-world is grounded in the world’s disclosedness. But disclosedness is that basic character of DASEIN according to which it is its "there". Disclosedness is constituted by state-of-mind, understanding, and discourse, and pertains equiprimordially to the world, to Being-in, and to the Self. In its very structure, care is ahead of itself – Being already in a world – as Being alongside entities within-the-world; and in this structure the disclosedness of DASEIN lies hidden. With and through it is uncoveredness; hence only with DASEIN’s disclosedness is the most primordial phenomenon of truth attained. What we have pointed out earlier with regard to the existential Constitution of the "there" and in relation to the everyday Being of the "there", pertains to the most primordial phenomenon of truth, nothing less. In so far as DASEIN is its disclosedness essentially, and discloses and uncovers as something disclosed to this extent it is essentially ‘true’. DASEIN is ‘in the truth’. This assertion has meaning ontologically. It does not purport to say that ontically DASEIN is introduced ‘to all the truth’ either always or just in every case, but rather that the disclosedness of its ownmost Being belongs to its existential constitution. BTMR: §44

If we accept the results we have obtained earlier, the full existential meaning of the principle that ‘DASEIN is in the truth’ can be restored by the following considerations: BTMR: §44

To DASEIN’s state of Being belongs falling. Proximally and for the most part DASEIN is lost in its ‘world’. Its understanding, as a projection upon possibilities of Being, has diverted itself thither. Its absorption in the "they" signifies that it is dominated by the way things are publicly interpreted. That which has been uncovered and disclosed stands in a mode in which it has been disguised and closed off by idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity. Being towards entities has not been extinguished, but it has been uprooted. Entities have not been completely hidden; they are precisely the sort of thing that has been uncovered, but at the same time they have been disguised. They show themselves, but in the mode of semblance. Likewise what has formerly been uncovered sinks back again, hidden and disguised. Because DASEIN is essentially falling, its state of Being is such that it is in ‘untruth’. This term, like the expression ‘falling’, is here used ontologically. If we are to use it in existential analysis, we must avoid giving it any ontically negative ‘evaluation’. To be closed off and covered up belongs to DASEIN’s facticity. In its full existential-ontological meaning, the proposition that ‘DASEIN is in the truth’ states equiprimordially that ‘DASEIN is in untruth’. But only in so far as DASEIN has been disclosed has it also been closed off; and only in so far as entities within-the-world have been uncovered along with DASEIN, have such entities, as possibly encounterable within-the-world, been covered up (hidden) or disguised. BTMR: §44

The goddess of Truth who guides Parmenides, puts two pathways before him, one of uncovering, one of hiding; but this signifies nothing else than that DASEIN is already both in the truth and in untruth. The way of uncovering is achieved only in krinein logon – in distinguishing between these understandingly, and making one’s decision for the one rather than the other. BTMR: §44

The upshot of our existential-ontological Interpretation of the phenomenon of truth is that truth, in the most primordial sense, is DASEIN’s disclosedness, to which the uncoveredness of entities within-the-world belongs; and that DASEIN is equiprimordially both in the truth and in untruth. BTMR: §44

Our Being alongside entities within-the-world is concern, and this is Being which uncovers. To DASEIN’s disclosedness, however, discourse belongs essentially.(xli) DASEIN expresses itself [spricht sich aus]: it expresses itself as a Being-towards entities – a Being-towards which uncovers. And in assertion it expresses itself as such about entities which have been uncovered. Assertion communicates entities in the "how" of their uncoveredness. When DASEIN is aware of the communication, it brings itself in its awareness into an uncovering Being-towards the entities discussed. The assertion which is expressed is about something, and in what it is about [in ihrem Worüber] it contains the uncoveredness of these entities. This uncoveredness is preserved in what is expressed. What is expressed becomes, as it were, something ready-to-hand within-the-world which can be taken up and spoken again. Because the uncoveredness has been preserved, that which is expressed (which thus is ready-to-hand) has in itself a relation to any entities about which it is an assertion. Any uncoveredness is an uncoveredness of something. Even when DASEIN speaks over again what someone else has said, it comes into a Being-towards the very entities which have been discussed. But it has been exempted from having to uncover them again, primordially, and it holds that it has been thus exempted. BTMR: §44

DASEIN, as constituted by disclosedness, is essentially in the truth. Disclosedness is a kind of Being which is essential to DASEIN. ‘There is’ truth only in so far as DASEIN is and so long as DASEIN i s. Entities are uncovered only when DASEIN is; and only as long as DASEIN is, are they disclosed. Newton’s laws, the principle of contradiction, any truth whatever – these are true only as long as DASEIN is. Before there was any DASEIN, there was no truth; nor will there be any after DASEIN is no more. For in such a case truth as disclosedness, uncovering, and uncoveredness, cannot be. Before Newton’s laws were discovered, they were not ‘true’; it does not follow that they were false, or even that they would become false if ontically no discoveredness were any longer possible. Just as little does this ‘restriction’ imply that the Being-true of ‘truths’ has in any way been diminished. BTMR: §44

What does it mean to ‘presuppose’? It is to understand something as the ground for the Being of some other entity. Such understanding of an entity in its interconnections of Being, is possible only on the ground of disclosedness – that is, on the ground of DASEIN’s Being something which uncovers. Thus to presuppose ‘truth’ means to understand it as something for the sake of which DASEIN i s. But DASEIN is already ahead of itself in each case; this is implied in its state-of-Being as care. It is an entity for which, in its Being, its ownmost potentiality-for-Being is an issue. To DASEIN’s Being and its potentiality-for-Being as Being-in-the-world, disclosedness and uncovering belong essentially. To DASEIN its potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world is an issue, and this includes concerning itself with entities within-the-world and uncovering them circumspectively. In DASEIN’s state-of-Being as care, in Being-ahead-of-itself, lies the most primordial ‘presupposing’. Because this presupposing of itself belongs to DASEIN’s Being, ‘we’ must also presuppose ‘ourselves’ as having the attribute of disclosedness. There are also entities with a character other than that of DASEIN, but the ‘presupposing’ which lies in DASEIN’s Being does not relate itself to these; it relates itself solely to DASEIN itself. The truth which has been presupposed, or the ‘there is’ by which its Being is to be defined, has that kind of Being – or meaning of Being – which belongs to DASEIN itself. We must ‘make’ the presupposition of truth because it is one that has been ‘made’ already with the Being of the ‘we’. BTMR: §44

We must presuppose truth. DASEIN itself, as in each case m y DASEIN and this DASEIN, must be; and in the same way the truth, as Daseins disclosedness, must be. This belongs to DASEIN’s essential thrownness into the world. Has DASEIN as itself ever decided freely whether it wants to come into ‘DASEIN’ or not, and will it ever be able to make such a decision? ‘In itself’ it is quite incomprehensible why entities are to be uncovered, why truth and DASEIN must be. The usual refutation of that scepticism which denies either the Being of ‘truth’ or its cognizability, stops half way. What it shows, as a formal argument, is simply that if anything gets judged, truth has been presupposed. This suggests that ‘truth’ belongs to assertion – that pointing something out is, by its very meaning, an uncovering. But when one says this, one has to clarify why that in which there lies the ontological ground for this necessary connection between assertion and truth as regards their Being, must be as it is. The kind of Being which belongs to truth is likewise left completely obscure, and so is the meaning of presupposing, and that of its ontological foundation in DASEIN itself. Moreover, one here fails to recognize that even when nobody judges, truth already gets presupposed in so far as DASEIN is at all. BTMR: §44

The Being of truth is connected primordially with DASEIN. And only because DASEIN is as constituted by disclosedness (that is, by understanding), can anything like Being be understood; only so is it possible to understand Being. BTMR: §44

Being (not entities) is something which ‘there is’ only in so far as truth is. And truth is only in so far as and as long as DASEIN is. Being and truth ‘are’ equiprimordially. What does it signify that Being ‘is’, where Being is to be distinguished from every entity? One can ask this concretely only if the meaning of Being and the full scope of the understanding of Being have in general been clarified. Only then can one also analyse primordially what belongs to the concept of a science of Being as such, and to its possibilities and its variations. And in demarcating this research and its truth, the kind of research in which entities are uncovered, and its accompanying truth, must be defined ontologically. BTMR: §44

If in care we have arrived at DASEIN’s primordial state of Being, then this must also be the basis for conceptualizing that understanding of Being which lies in care; that is to say, it must be possible to define the meaning of Being. But is the phenomenon of care one in which the most primordial existential-ontological state of DASEIN is disclosed? And has the structural manifoldness which lies in this phenomenon, presented us with the most primordial totality of factical DASEIN’s Being? Has our investigation up to this point ever brought DASEIN into view as a whole? BTMR: §44

WHAT have we gained by our preparatory analysis of DASEIN, and what are we seeking? In Being-in-the-world, whose essential structures centre in disclosedness, we have found the basic state of the entity we have taken as our theme. The totality of Being-in-the-world as a structural whole has revealed itself as care. In care the Being of DASEIN is included. When we came to analyse this Being, we took as our clue existence, which, in anticipation, we had designated as the essence of DASEIN. This term "existence" formally indicates that DASEIN is as an understanding potentiality-for-Being, which, in its Being, makes an issue of that Being itself. In every case, I myself am the entity which is in such a manner [dergestalt seiend]. By working out the phenomenon of care, we have given ourselves an insight into the concrete constitution of existence – that is, an insight into its equiprimordial connection with DASEIN’s facticity and its falling. BTMR: §45

Has the existential analysis of DASEIN which we have carried out, arisen from such a hermeneutical Situation as will guarantee the primordiality which fundamental ontology demands? Can we progress from the result we have obtained – that the being of DASEIN is care – to the question of the primordial unity of this structural whole? BTMR: §45

Thus arises the task of putting DASEIN as a whole into our fore-having. This signifies, however, that we must first of all raise the question of this entity’s potentiality-for-Being-a-whole. As long as DASEIN is, there is in every case something still outstanding, which DASEIN can be and will be. But to that which is thus outstanding, the ‘end’ itself belongs. The ‘end’ of Being-in-the-world is death. This end, which belongs to the potentiality-for-Being – that is to say, to existence – limits and determines in every case whatever totality is possible for DASEIN. If, however, DASEIN’s Being-at-an-end in death, and therewith its Being-a-whole, are to be included in the discussion of its possibly Being-a-whole, and if this is to be done in a way which is appropriate to the phenomena, then we must have obtained an ontologically adequate conception of death – that is to say an existential conception of it. But as something of the character of DASEIN, death is only in an existentiell Being towards death [Sein zum Tode]. The existential structure of such Being proves to be the ontologically constitutive state of DASEIN’s potentiality-for-Being-a-whole. Thus the whole existing DASEIN allows itself to be brought into our existential fore-having. But can DASEIN also exist authentically as a whole? How is the authenticity of existence to be determined at all, if not with regard to authentic existing? Where do we get our criterion for this? Manifestly, DASEIN itself must, in its Being, present us with the possibility and the manner of its authentic existence, unless such existence is something that can be imposed upon it ontically, or ontologically fabricated. But an authentic potentiality-for-Being is attested by the conscience. And conscience, as a phenomenon of DASEIN, demands, like death, a genuinely existential Interpretation. Such an Interpretation leads to the insight that DASEIN has an authentic potentiality-for-Being in that it wants to have a conscience. But this is an existentiell possibility which tends, from the very meaning of its Being, to be made definite in an existentiell way by Being-towards-death. BTMR: §45

But the primordial ontological basis for’ DASEIN’s existentiality is temporality. In terms of temporality, the articulated structural totality of DASEIN’s Being as care first becomes existentially intelligible. The Interpretation of the meaning of DASEIN’s Being cannot stop with this demonstration. The existential-temporal analysis of this entity needs to be confirmed concretely. We must go back and lay bare in their temporal meaning the ontological structures of DASEIN which we have previously obtained. Everydayness reveals itself as a mode of temporality. But by thus recapitulating our preparatory fundamental analysis of DASEIN, we will at the same time make the phenomenon of temporality itself more transparent. In terms of temporality, it then becomes intelligible why DASEIN is, and can be, historical in the basis of its Being, and why, as historical, it can develop historiology. BTMR: §45

But as soon as DASEIN ‘exists’ in such a way that absolutely nothing more is still outstanding in it, then it has already for this very reason become "no-longer-Being-there" [Nicht-mehr-da-sein]. Its Being is annihilated when what is still outstanding in its Being has been liquidated. As long as DASEIN is as an entity, it has never reached its ‘wholeness’. But if it gains such ‘wholeness’, this gain becomes the utter loss of Being-in-the-world. In such a case, it can never again be experienced as an entity. BTMR: §46

We cannot cross out the ‘ahead-of-itself’ as an essential item in the structure of care. But how sound are the conclusions which we have drawn from this? Has not the impossibility of getting the whole of DASEIN into our grasp been inferred by an argument which is merely formal? Or have we not at bottom inadvertently posited that DASEIN is something present-at-hand, ahead of which something that is not yet present-at-hand is constantly shoving itself? Have we, in our argument, taken "Being-not-yet" and the ‘ahead’ in a sense that is genuinely existential? Has our talk of the ‘end’ and ‘totality’ been phenomenally appropriate to DASEIN? Has the expression ‘death’ had a biological signification or one that is existential-ontological, or indeed any signification that has been adequately and surely delimited? Have we indeed exhausted all the possibilities for making DASEIN accessible in its wholeness? BTMR: §46

When DASEIN reaches its wholeness in death, it simultaneously loses the Being of its "there". By its transition to no-longer-Dasein [Nichtmehr-dasein], it gets lifted right out of the possibility of experiencing this transition and of understanding it as something experienced. Surely this sort of thing is denied to any particular DASEIN in relation to itself. But this makes the death of Others more impressive. In this way a termination [Beendigung] of DASEIN becomes ‘Objectively’ accessible. DASEIN can thus gain an experience of death, all the more so because DASEIN is essentially Being with Others. In that case, the fact that death has been thus ‘Objectively’ given must make possible an ontological delimitation of DASEIN’s totality. BTMR: §47

Even the DASEIN of Others, when it has reached its wholeness in death, is no-longer-Dasein, in the sense of Being-no-longer-in-the-world. Does not dying mean going-out-of-the-world, and losing one’s Being-in-the-world? Yet when someone has died, his Being-no-longer-in-the-world (if we understand it in an extreme way) is still a Being, but in the sense of the Being-just-present-at-hand-and-no-more of a corporeal Thing which we encounter. In the dying of the Other we can experience that remarkable phenomenon of Being which may be defined as the change-over of an entity from DASEIN’s kind of Being (or life) to no-longer-Dasein. The end of the entity qua DASEIN is the beginning of the same entity qua something present-at-hand. BTMR: §47

But above all, the suggestion that the dying of Others is a substitute theme for the ontological analysis of DASEIN’s totality and the settling of its account, rests on a presupposition which demonstrably fails altogether to recognize DASEIN’s kind of Being. This is what one presupposes when one is of the opinion that any DASEIN may be substituted for another at random, so that what cannot be experienced in one’s own DASEIN is accessible in that of a stranger. But is this presupposition actually so baseless? BTMR: §47

However, this possibility of representing breaks down completely if the issue is one of representing that possibility-of-Being which makes up DASEIN’s coming to an end, and which, as such, gives to it its wholeness. No one can take the Other’s dying away from him. Of course someone can ‘go to his death for another’. But that always means to sacrifice oneself for the Other ‘in some definite affair’. Such "dying for" can never signify that the Other has thus had his death taken away in even the slightest degree. Dying is something that every DASEIN itself must take upon itself at the time. By its very essence, death is in every case mine, in so far as it ‘is’ at all. And indeed death signifies a peculiar possibility-of-Being in which the very Being of one’s own DASEIN is an issue. In dying, it is shown that mineness and existence are ontologically constitutive for death. Dying is not an event; it is a phenomenon to be understood existentially; and it is to be understood in a distinctive sense which must be still more closely delimited. BTMR: §47

But this lack-of-togetherness which belongs to such a mode of togetherness – this being-missing as still-outstanding – cannot by any means define ontologically that "not-yet" which belongs to DASEIN as its possible death. DASEIN does not have at all the kind of Being of something ready-to-hand-within-the-world. The togetherness of an entity of the kind which DASEIN is ‘in running its course’ until that ‘course’ has been completed, is not constituted by a ‘continuing’ piecing-on of entities which, somehow and somewhere, are ready-to-hand already in their own right. BTMR: §48

That DASEIN should be together only when its "not-yet" has been filled up is so far from the case that it is precisely then that DASEIN is no longer. Any DASEIN always exists in just such a manner that its "not-yet" belongs to it. But are there not entities which are as they are and to which a "not-yet" can belong, but which do not necessarily have DASEIN’s kind of Being? BTMR: §48

When, for instance, a fruit is unripe, it "goes towards" its ripeness. In this process of ripening, that which the fruit is not yet, is by no means pieced on as something not yet present-at-hand. The fruit brings itself to ripeness, and such a bringing of itself is a characteristic of its Being as a fruit. Nothing imaginable which one might contribute to it, would eliminate the unripeness of the fruit, if this entity did not come to ripeness of its own accord. When we speak of the "not-yet" of the unripeness, we do not have in view something else which stands outside [aussenstehendes], and which – with utter indifference to the fruit – might be present-at-hand in it and with it. What we have in view is the fruit itself in its specific kind of Being. The sum which is not yet complete is, as something ready-to- hand, ‘a matter of indifference’ as regards the remainder which is lacking and un-ready-to-hand, though, taken strictly, it can neither be indifferent to that remainder nor not be indifferent to it. The ripening fruit, however, not only is not indifferent to its unripeness as something other than itself, but it is that unripeness as it ripens. The "not-yet" has already been included in the very Being of the fruit, not as some random characteristic, but as something constitutive. Correspondingly, as long as any DASEIN is, it too is already its "not-yet". BTMR: §48

On the contrary, just as DASEIN is already its "not-yet", and is its "not-yet" constantly as long as it is, it is already its end too. The "ending" which we have in view when we speak of death, does not signify DASEIN’s Being-at-an-end [Zu-Ende-sein], but a Being-towards-the-end [Sein zum Ende] of this entity. Death is a way to be, which DASEIN takes over as soon as it is. "As soon as man comes to life, he is at once old enough to die.’ BTMR: §48

Our attempt to understand DASEIN’s totality by taking as our point of departure a clarification of the "not-yet" and going on to a characterization of "ending", has not led us to our goal. It has shown only in a negative way that the "not-yet" which DASEIN in every case is, resists Interpretation as something still outstanding. The end towards which DASEIN is as existing, remains inappropriately defined by the notion of a "Being-at-an-end". These considerations, however, should at the same time make it plain that they must be turned back in their course. A positive characterization of the phenomena in question (Being-not-yet, ending, totality) succeeds only when it is unequivocally oriented to DASEIN’s state of Being. But if we have any insight into the realms where those end-structures and totality-structures which are to be construed ontologically with DASEIN belong, this will, in a negative way, make this unequivocal character secure against wrong turnings. BTMR: §48

Underlying this biological-ontical exploration of death is a problematic that is ontological. We still have to ask how the ontological essence of death is defined in terms of that of life. In a certain way, this has always been decided already in the ontical investigation of death. Such investigations operate with preliminary conceptions of life and death, which have been more or less clarified. These preliminary conceptions need to be sketched out by the ontology of DASEIN. Within the ontology of DASEIN, which is superordinate to an ontology of life, the existential analysis of death is, in turn, subordinate to a characterization of DASEIN’s basic state. The ending of that which lives we have called ‘perishing’. DASEIN too ‘has’ its death, of the kind appropriate to anything that lives; and it has it, not in ontical isolation, but as codetermined by its primordial kind of Being. In so far as this is the case, DASEIN too can end without authentically dying, though on the other hand, qua DASEIN, it does not simply perish. We designate this intermediate phenomenon as its "demise". Let the term "dying" stand for that way of Being in which DASEIN is towards its death. Accordingly we must say that DASEIN never perishes. DASEIN, however, can demise only as long as it is dying. Medical and biological investigation into "demising" can obtain results which may even become significant ontologically if the basic orientation for an existential Interpretation of death has been made secure. Or must sickness and death in general – even from a medical point of view – be primarily conceived as existential phenomena? BTMR: §49

As potentiality-for-Being, DASEIN cannot outstrip the possibility of death. Death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of DASEIN. Thus death reveals itself as that possibility which is one’s ownmost, which is non-relational, and which is not to be outstripped [unüberholbare]. As such, death is something distinctively impending. Its existential possibility is based on the fact that DASEIN is essentially disclosed to itself, and disclosed, indeed, as ahead-of-itself. This item in the structure of care has its most primordial concretion in Being-towards-death. As a phenomenon, Being-towards-the-end becomes plainer as Being towards that distinctive possibility of DASEIN which we have characterized. BTMR: §50

Being-towards-the-end does not first arise through some attitude which occasionally emerges, nor does it arise as such an attitude; it belongs essentially to DASEIN’s thrownness, which reveals itself in a state-of-mind (mood) in one way or another. The factical ‘knowledge’ or ‘ignorance’ which prevails in any DASEIN as to its ownmost Being-towards-the-end, is only the expression of the existentiell possibility that there are different ways of maintaining oneself in this Being. Factically, there are many who, proximally and for the most part, do not know about death; but this must not be passed off as a ground for proving that Being-towards-death does not belong to DASEIN ‘universally’. It only proves that proximally and for the most part DASEIN covers up its ownmost Being-towards-death, fleeing in the face of it. Factically, DASEIN is dying as long as it exists, but proximally and for the most part, it does so by way of falling. For factical existing is not only generally and without further differentiation a thrown potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world, but it has always likewise been absorbed in the ‘world’ of its concern. In this falling Being-alongside, fleeing from uncanniness announces itself; and this means now, a fleeing in the face of one’s ownmost Being-towards-death. Existence, facticity, and falling characterize Being-towards-the-end, and are therefore constitutive for the existential conception of death. As regards its ontological possibility, dying is grounded in care. BTMR: §50

But along with this tranquilization, which forces DASEIN away from its death, the "they" at the same time puts itself in the right and makes itself respectable by tacitly regulating the way in which one has to comport oneself towards death. It is already a matter of public acceptance that ‘thinking about death’ is a cowardly fear, a sign of insecurity on the part of DASEIN, and a sombre way of fleeing from the world. The "they" does not permit us the courage for anxiety in the face of death. The dominance of the manner in which things have been publicly interpreted by the "they", has already decided what state-of-mind is to determine our attitude towards death. In anxiety in the face of death, DASEIN is brought face to face with itself as delivered over to that possibility which is not to be outstripped. The "they" concerns itself with transforming this anxiety into fear in the face of an oncoming event. In addition, the anxiety which has been made ambiguous as fear, is passed off as a weakness with which no self-assured DASEIN may have any acquaintance. What is ‘fitting’ [Was sich... "gehört"] according to the unuttered decree of the "they", is indifferent tranquillity as to the ‘fact’ that one dies. The cultivation of such a ‘superior’ indifference alienates DASEIN from its ownmost non-relational potentiality-for-Being. BTMR: §51

But temptation, tranquilization, and alienation are distinguishing marks of the kind of Being called "falling". As falling, everyday Being-towards-death is a constant fleeing in the face of death. Being-towards-the-end has the mode of evasion in the face of it – giving new explanations for it, understanding it inauthentically, and concealing it. Factically one’s own DASEIN is always dying already; that is to say, it is in a Being-towards-its-end. And it hides this Fact from itself by recoining "death" as just a "case of death" in Others – an everyday occurrence which, if need be, gives us the assurance still more plainly that ‘oneself’ is still ‘living’. But in thus falling and fleeing in the face of death, DASEIN’s everydayness attests that the very "they" itself already has the definite character of Being-towards-death, even when it is not explicitly engaged in ‘thinking about death’. Even in average everydayness, this ownmost potentiality-for-Being, which is non-relational and not to be outstripped, is constantly an issue for DASEIN. This is the case when its concern is merely in the mode of an untroubled indifference towards the uttermost possibility of existence. BTMR: §51

To be certain of an entity means to hold it for true as something true. But "truth" signifies the uncoveredness of some entity, and all uncoveredness is grounded ontologically in the most primordial truth, the disclosedness of DASEIN. As an entity which is both disclosed and disclosing, and one which uncovers, DASEIN is essentially ‘in the truth’. But certainly is grounded in the truth, or belongs to it equiprimordially. The expression ‘certainty’, like the term ‘truth’, has a double signification. Primordially "truth" means the same as "Being-disclosive", as a way in which DASEIN behaves. From this comes the derivative signification: "the uncoveredness of entities". Correspondingly, "certainty", in its primordial signification, is tantamount to "Being-certain", as a kind of Being which belongs to DASEIN. However, in a derivative signification, any entity of which DASEIN can be certain will also get called something ‘certain’. BTMR: §52

In this ‘critical’ determination of the certainty of death, and of its impendence, what is manifested in the first instance is, once again, a failure to recognize DASEIN’s kind of Being and the Being-towards-death which belongs to DASEIN – a failure that is characteristic of everydayness. The fact that demise, as an event which occurs, is ‘only’ empirically certain, is in no way decisive as to the certainty of death. Cases of death may be the factical occasion for DASEIN’s first paying attention to death at all. So long, however, as DASEIN remains in the empirical certainty which we have mentioned, death, in the way that it ‘is’, is something of which DASEIN can by no means become certain. Even though, in the publicness of the "they", DASEIN seems to ‘talk’ only of this ‘empirical’ certainty of death, nevertheless at bottom DASEIN does not exclusively or primarily stick to those cases of death which merely occur. In evading its death, even everyday Being-towards-the-end is indeed certain of its death in another way than it might itself like to have true on purely theoretical considerations. This ‘other way’ is what everydayness for the most part veils from itself: Everydayness does not dare to let itself become transparent in such a manner. We have already characterized the every-day state-of-mind which consists in an air of superiority with regard to the certain ‘fact’ of death – a superiority which is ‘anxiously’ concerned while seemingly free from anxiety. In this state-of-mind, everydayness acknowledges a ‘higher’ certainty than one which is only empirical. One knows about the certainty of death, and yet ‘is’ not authentically certain of one’s own. The falling everydayness of DASEIN is acquainted with death’s certainty, and yet evades Being-certain. But in the light of what it evades, this very evasion attests phenomenally that death must be conceived as one’s ownmost possibility, non-relational, not to be outstripped, and – above all – certain. BTMR: §52

Meanwhile, it remains questionable whether this problem has been as yet adequately worked out. Being-towards-death is grounded in care. DASEIN, as thrown Being-in-the-world, has in every case already been delivered over to its death. In being towards its death, DASEIN is dying factically and indeed constantly, as long as it has not yet come to its demise. When we say that DASEIN is factically dying, we are saying at the same time that in its Being-towards-death DASEIN has always decided itself in one way or another. Our everyday falling evasion in the face of death is an inauthentic Being-towards-death. But inauthenticity is based on the possibility of authenticity. Inauthenticity characterizes a kind of Being into which DASEIN can divert itself and has for the most part always diverted itself; but DASEIN does not necessarily and constantly have to divert itself into this kind of Being. Because DASEIN exists, it determines its own character as the kind of entity it is, and it does so in every case in terms of a possibility which it itself is and which it understands. BTMR: §52

DASEIN is constituted by disclosedness – that is, by an understanding with a state-of-mind. Authentic Being-towards-death can not evade its own-most non-relational possibility, or cover up this possibility by thus fleeing from it, or give a new explanation for it to accord with the common sense of the "they". In our existential projection of an authentic Being-towards-death, therefore, we must set forth those items in such a Being which are constitutive for it as an understanding of death – and as such an understanding in the sense of Being towards this possibility without either fleeing it or covering it up. BTMR: §53

The ownmost possibility is non-relational. Anticipation allows DASEIN to understand that that potentiality-for-being in which its ownmost Being is an issue, must be taken over by DASEIN alone. Death does not just ‘belong’ to one’s own DASEIN in an undifferentiated way; death lays claim to it as an individual DASEIN. The non-relational character of death, as understood in anticipation, individualizes DASEIN down to itself. This individualizing is a way in which the ‘there’ is disclosed for existence. It makes manifest that all Being-alongside the things with which we concern ourselves, and all Being-with Others, will fail us when our ownmost potentiality-for-Being is the issue. DASEIN can be authentically itself only if it makes this possible for itself of its own accord. But if concern and solicitude fail us, this does not signify at all that these ways of DASEIN have been cut off from its authentically Being-its-Self. As structures essential to DASEIN’s constitution, these have a share in conditioning the possibility of any existence whatsoever. DASEIN is authentically itself only to the extent that, as concernful Being-alongside and solicitous Being-with, it projects itself upon its ownmost potentiality-for-Being rather than upon the possibility of the they-self. The entity which anticipates its non-relational possibility, is thus forced by that very anticipation into the possibility of taking over from itself its ownmost Being, and doing so of its own accord. BTMR: §53

But because DASEIN is lost in the "they", it must first find itself. In order to find itself at all, it must be ‘shown’ to itself in its possible authenticity. In terms of its possibility, DASEIN is already a potentiality-for-Being-its-Self, but it needs to have this potentiality attested. BTMR: §54

Losing itself in the publicness and the idle talk of the "they", it fails to hear [überhört] its own Self in listening to the they-self. If DASEIN is to be able to get brought back from this lostness of failing to hear itself, and if this is to be done through itself, then it must first be able to find itself – to find itself as something which has failed to hear itself, and which fails to hear in that it listens away to the "they". This listening-away must get broken off; in other words, the possibility of another kind of hearing which will interrupt it, must be given by DASEIN itself. The possibility of its thus getting broken off lies in its being appealed to without mediation. DASEIN fails to hear itself, and listens away to the "they"; and this listening-away gets broken by the call if that call, in accordance with its character as such, arouses another kind of hearing, which, in relationship to the hearing that is lost, has a character in every way opposite. If in this lost hearing, one has been fascinated with the ‘hubbub’ of the manifold ambiguity which idle talk possesses in its everyday ‘newness’, then the call must do its calling without any hubbub and unambiguously, leaving no foothold for curiosity. That which, by calling in this manner, gives us to understand, is the conscience. BTMR: §55

But is it at all necessary to keep raising explicitly the question of who does the calling? Is this not answered for DASEIN just as unequivocally as the question of to whom the call makes its appeal? In conscience DASEIN calls itself. This understanding of the caller may be more or less awake in the factical hearing of the call. Ontologically, however, it is not enough to answer that DASEIN is at the same time both the caller and the one to whom the appeal is made. When DASEIN is appealed to, is it not ‘there’ in a different way from that in which it does the calling? Shall we say that its ownmost potentiality-for-Being-its-Self functions as the caller? BTMR: §57

These phenomenal findings are not to be explained away. After all, they have been taken as a starting-point for explaining the voice of conscience as an alien power by which DASEIN is dominated. If the interpretation continues in this direction, one supplies a possessor for the power thus posited, or one takes the power itself as a person who makes himself known – namely God. On the other hand one may try to reject this explanation in which the caller is taken as an alien manifestation of such a power, and to explain away the conscience ‘biologically’ at the same time. Both these explanations pass over the phenomenal findings too hastily. Such procedures are facilitated by the unexpressed but ontologically dogmatic guiding thesis that what is (in other words, anything so factual as the call) must be present-at-hand, and that what does not let itself be Objectively demonstrated as present-at-hand, just is not at all. BTMR: §57

That it is factically, may be obscure and hidden as regards the "why" of it; but the "that-it-is" has itself been disclosed to DASEIN. The thrownness of this entity belongs to the disclosedness of the ‘there’ and reveals itself constantly in its current state-of-mind. This state-of-mind brings DASEIN, more or less explicitly and authentically, face to face with the fact ‘that it is, and that it has to be something with a potentiality-for-Being as the entity which it is’. For the most part, however, its mood is such that its thrownness gets closed off. In the face of its thrownness DASEIN flees to the relief which comes with the supposed freedom of the they-self. This fleeing has been described as a fleeing in the face of the uncanniness which is basically determinative for individualized Being-in-the-world. Uncanniness reveals itself authentically in the basic state-of-mind of anxiety; and, as the most elemental way in which thrown DASEIN is disclosed, it puts DASEIN’s Being-in-the-world face to face with the "nothing" of the world; in the face of this "nothing", DASEIN is anxious with anxiety about its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. What if this DASEIN, which finds itself [sich befindet] in the very depths of its uncanniness, should be the caller of the call of conscience? BTMR: §57

The proposition that DASEIN is at the same time both the caller and the one to whom the appeal is made, has now lost its empty formal character and its obviousness. Conscience manifests itself as the call of care: the caller is DASEIN, which, in its thrownness (in its Being-already-in), is anxious about its potentiality-for-Being. The one to whom the appeal is made is this very same DASEIN, summoned to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being (ahead of itself...). DASEIN is falling into the "they" (in Being-already-alongside the world of its concern), and it is summoned out of this falling by the appeal. The call of conscience – that is, conscience itself – has its ontological possibility in the fact that DASEIN, in the very basis of its Being, is care. BTMR: §57

Nevertheless, in the idea of ‘Guilty!’ there lies the character of the "not". If the ‘Guilty!’ is something that can definitely apply to existence, then this raises the ontological problem of clarifying existentially the character of this "not" as a "not". Moreover, to the idea of ‘Guilty!’ belongs what is expressed without further differentiation in the conception of guilt as ‘having responsibility for’ – that is, as Being-the basis for... Hence we define the formally existential idea of the ‘Guilty!’ as "Being-the-basis for a Being which has been defined by a ‘not’ " – that is to say, as "Being-the-basis of a nullity". The idea of the "not" which lies in the concept of guilt as understood existentially, excludes relatedness to anything present-at-hand which is possible or which may have been required; furthermore, DASEIN is altogether incommensurable with anything present-at-hand or generally accepted [Geltenden] which is not it itself, or which is not in the way DASEIN is – namely, existing; so any possibility that, with regard to Being-the-basis for a lack, the entity which is itself such a basis might be reckoned up as ‘lacking in some manner’, is a possibility which drops out. If a lack, such as failure to fulfil some requirement, has been ‘caused’ in a manner characteristic of DASEIN, we cannot simply reckon back to there being something lacking [Mangelhaftigkeit] in the ‘cause’. Being-the-basis-for-something need not have the same "not"-character as the privativum which is based upon it and which arises from it. The basis need not acquire a nullity of its own from that for which it is the basis [seinem Begründeten]. This implies, however, that Being-guilty does not first result from an indebtedness [Verschuldung], but that, on the contrary, indebtedness becomes possible only ‘on the basis’ of a primordial Being-guilty. Can something like this be exhibited in DASEIN’s Being, and how is it at all possible existentially? BTMR: §58

DASEIN’s Being is care. It comprises in itself facticity (thrownness), existence (projection), and falling. As being, DASEIN is something that has been thrown; it has been brought into its "there", but not of its own accord. As being, it has taken the definite form of a potentiality-for-Being which has heard itself and has devoted itself to itself, but not as itself. As existent, it never comes back behind its thrownness in such a way that it might first release this ‘that-it-is-and-has-to-be’ from its Being-its-Self and lead it into the "there". Thrownness, however, does not lie behind it as some event which has happened to DASEIN, which has factually befallen and fallen loose from DASEIN again; on the contrary, as long as DASEIN is, DASEIN, as care, is constantly its ‘that-it-is’. To this entity it has been delivered over, and as such it can exist solely as the entity which it is; and as this entity to which it has been thus delivered over, it is, in its existing, the basis of its potentiality-for-Being. Although it has not laid that basis itself, it reposes in the weight of it, which is made manifest to it as a burden by DASEIN’s mood. BTMR: §58

In being a basis – that is, in existing as thrown – DASEIN constantly lags behind its possibilities. It is never existent before its basis, but only from it and as this basis. Thus "Being-a-basis" means never to have power over one’s ownmost Being from the ground up. This "not" belongs to the existential meaning of "thrownness". It itself, being a basis, is a nullity of itself. "Nullity" does not signify anything like not-Being-present-at-hand or not-subsisting; what one has in view here is rather a "not" which is constitutive for this Being of DASEIN – its thrownness. The character of this "not" as a "not" may be defined existentially: in being its Self, DASEIN is, as a Self, the entity that has been thrown. It has been released from its basis, not through itself but to itself; so as to be as this basis. DASEIN is not itself the basis of its Being, inasmuch as this basis first arises from its own projection; rather, as Being-its-Self, it is the Being of its basis. This basis is never anything but the basis for an entity whose Being has to take over Being-a-basis. BTMR: §58

DASEIN is its basis existently – that is, in such a manner that it understands itself in terms of possibilities, and, as so understanding itself, is that entity which has been thrown. But this implies that in having a potentiality-for-Being it always stands in one possibility or another: it constantly is not other possibilities, and it has waived these in its existentiell projection. Not only is the projection, as one that has been thrown, determined by the nullity of Being-a-basis; as projection it is itself essentially null. This does not mean that it has the ontical property of ‘inconsequentiality’ or ‘worthlessness’; what we have here is rather something existentially constitutive for the structure of the Being of projection. The nullity we have in mind belongs to DASEIN’s Being-free for its existentiell possibilities. Freedom, however, is only in the choice of one possibility – that is, in tolerating one’s not having chosen the others and one’s not being able to choose them. BTMR: §58

But what kind of experience speaks for this primordial Being-guilty which belongs to DASEIN? Nor may we forget the counter-question: ‘is’ guilt ‘there’ only if a consciousness of guilt gets awakened, or does not the primordial Being-guilty make itself known rather in the very fact that guilt is ‘asleep’? That this primordial Being-guilty remains proximally and for the most part undisclosed, that it is kept closed off by DASEIN’s falling Being, reveals only the aforesaid nullity. Being-guilty is more primordial than any knowledge about it. And only because DASEIN is guilty in the basis of its Being, and closes itself off from itself as something thrown and falling, is conscience possible, if indeed the call gives us this Being-guilty as something which at bottom we are to understand. BTMR: §58

Hearing the appeal correctly is thus tantamount to having an understanding of oneself in one’s ownmost potentiality-for-Being – that is, to projecting oneself upon one’s ownmost authentic potentiality for becoming guilty. When DASEIN understandingly lets itself be called forth to this possibility, this includes its becoming free for the call – its readiness for the potentiality of getting appealed to. In understanding the call, DASEIN is in thrall to [hörig] its ownmost possibility of existence. It has chosen itself. BTMR: §58

But does the ‘fact’ that the voice comes afterwards, prevent the call from being basically a calling-forth? That the voice gets taken as a stirring of conscience which follows after is not enough to prove that we understand the phenomenon of conscience primordially. What if factical indebtedness were only the occasion for the factical calling of conscience? What if that Interpretation of the ‘evil’ conscience which we have described goes only half way? That such is the case is evident from the ontological fore-having within whose scope the phenomenon has been brought by this Interpretation. The voice is something that turns up; it has its position in the sequence of Experiences which are present-at-hand, and it follows after the Experience of the deed. But neither the call, nor the deed which has happened, nor the guilt with which one is laden, is an occurrence with the character of something present-at-hand which runs its course. The call has the kind of Being which belongs to care. In the call DASEIN ‘is’ ahead of itself in such a way that at the same time it directs itself back to its thrownness. Only by first positing that DASEIN is an interconnected sequence of successive Experiences, is it possible to take the voice as something which comes afterwards, something later, which therefore necessarily refers back. The voice does call back, but it calls beyond the deed which has happened, and back to the Being-guilty into which one has been thrown, which is ‘earlier’ than any indebtedness. But at the same time, this calling-back calls forth to Being-guilty, as something to be seized upon in one’s own existence, so that authentic existentiell Being-guilty only ‘follows after’ the call, not vice versa. Bad conscience is basically so far from just reproving and pointing back that it rather points forward as it calls one back into one’s thrownness. The order of the sequence in which Experiences run their course does not give us the phenomenal structure of existing. BTMR: §59

To escape this conclusion, the "good’ conscience has been Interpreted as a privation of the ‘bad’ one, and defined as ‘an Experienced lack of bad conscience’. This would make it an experience of not having the call turn up – that is, of my having nothing with which to reproach myself. But how is such a ‘lack’ ‘Experienced’? This supposed Experience is by no means the experiencing of a call; it is rather a making-certain that a deed attributed to DASEIN has not been perpetrated by it and that DASEIN is therefore not guilty. Becoming certain that one has not done something, has by no means the character of a conscience-phenomenon. It can, however, signify rather that one is forgetting one’s conscience – in other words, that one is emerging from the possibility of being able to be appealed to. In the ‘certainty’ here mentioned lurks the tranquillizing suppression of one’s wanting to have a conscience – that is, of understanding one’s ownmost and constant Being-guilty. The ‘good’ conscience is neither a self-subsistent form of conscience, nor a founded form of conscience; in short, it is not a conscience-phenomenon at all. BTMR: §59

When Kant represented the conscience as a ‘court of justice’ and made this the basic guiding idea in his Interpretation of it, he did not do so by accident; this was suggested by the idea of moral law – although his conception of morality was far removed from utilitarianism and eudaemonism. Even the theory of value, whether it is regarded formally or materially, has as its unexpressed ontological presupposition a ‘metaphysic of morals’ – that is, an ontology of DASEIN and existence. DASEIN is regarded as an entity with which one might concern oneself, whether this "concern" has the sense of ‘actualizing values’ or of satisfying a norm. BTMR: §59

What kind of mood corresponds to such understanding? Understanding the call discloses one’s own DASEIN in the uncannines of its individualization. The uncanniness which is revealed in understanding and revealed along with it, becomes genuinely disclosed by the state-of-mind of anxiety which belongs to that understanding. The fact of the anxiety of conscience, gives us phenomenal confirmation that in understanding the call DASEIN is brought face to face with its own uncanniness. Wanting-to-have-a-conscience becomes a readiness for anxiety. BTMR: §60

Resoluteness is a distinctive mode of DASEIN’s disclosedness. In an earlier passage, however, we have Interpreted disclosedness existentially as the primordial truth. Such truth is primarily not a quality of ‘judgment’ nor of any definite way of behaving, but something essentially constitutive for Being-in-the-world as such. Truth must be conceived as a fundamental existentiale. In our ontological clarification of the proposition that ‘DASEIN is in the truth’ we have called attention to the primordial disclosedness of this entity as the truth of existence; and for the delimitation of its character we have referred to the analysis of DASEIN’s authenticity. BTMR: §60

In the light of the "for-the-sake-of-which" of one’s self-chosen potentiality-for-Being, resolute DASEIN frees itself for its world. DASEIN’s resoluteness towards itself is what first makes it possible to let the Others who are with it ‘be’ in their ownmost potentiality-for-Being, and to co-disclose this potentiality in the solicitude which leaps forth and liberates. When DASEIN is resolute, it can become the ‘conscience’ of Others. Only by authentically Being-their-Selves in resoluteness can people authentically be with one another – not by ambiguous and jealous stipulations and talkative fraternizing in the "they" and in what "they" want to undertake. BTMR: §60

What one resolves upon in resoluteness has been prescribed ontologically in the existentiality of DASEIN in general as a potentiality-for-Being in the manner of concernful solicitude. As care, however, DASEIN has been Determined by facticity and falling. Disclosed in its ‘there’, it maintains itself both in truth and in untruth with equal primordiality. This ‘really’ holds in particular for resoluteness as authentic truth. Resoluteness appropriates untruth authentically. DASEIN is already in irresoluteness [Unentschlossenheit], and soon, perhaps, will be in it again. The term "irresoluteness’ merely expresses that phenomenon which we have Interpreted as a Being-surrendered to the way in which things have been prevalently interpreted by the "they". DASEIN, as a they-self, gets ‘lived’ by the common-sense ambiguity of that publicness in which nobody resolves upon anything but which has always made its decision. "Resoluteness" signifies letting oneself be summoned out of one’s lostness in the "they". The irresoluteness of the "they" remains dominant notwithstanding, but it cannot impugn resolute existence. In the counter-concept to irresoluteness, as resoluteness as existentially understood, we do not have in mind any ontico-psychical characteristic in the sense of Being-burdened with inhibitions. Even resolutions remain dependent upon the "they" and its world. The understanding of this is one of the things that a resolution discloses, inasmuch as resoluteness is what first gives authentic transparency to DASEIN. In resoluteness the issue for DASEIN is its ownmost potentiality-for-Being, which, as something thrown, can project itself only upon definite factical possibilities. Resolution does not withdraw itself from ‘actuality’, but discovers first what is factically possible; and it does so by seizing upon it in whatever way is possible for it as its ownmost potentiality-for-Being in the "they". The existential attributes of any possible resolute DASEIN include the items constitutive for an existential phenomenon which we call a "Situation" and which we have hitherto passed over. BTMR: §60

This phenomenon which we have exhibited as "resoluteness’ can hardly be confused with an empty ‘habitus’ or an indefinite ‘velleity’. Resoluteness does not first take cognizance of a Situation and put that Situation before itself; it has put itself into that Situation already. As resolute, DASEIN is already taking action. The term ‘take action’ is one which we are purposely avoiding. For in the first place this term must be taken so broadly that "activity" [Aktivität] will also embrace the passivity of resistance. In the second place, it suggests a misunderstanding in the ontology of DASEIN, as if resoluteness were a special way of behaviour belonging to the practical faculty as contrasted with one that is theoretical. Care, however, as concernful solicitude, so primordially and wholly envelops DASEIN’s Being that it must already be presupposed as a whole when we distinguish between theoretical and practical behaviour; it cannot first be built up out of these faculties by a dialectic which, because it is existentially ungrounded, is necessarily quite baseless. Resoluteness, however, is only that authenticity which, in care, is the object of care [in der Sorge gesorgte], and which is possible as care – the authenticity of care itself. BTMR: §60

Now that resoluteness has been worked out as Being-guilty, a self-projection in which one is reticent and ready for anxiety, our investigation has been put in a position for defining the ontological meaning of that potentiality which we have been seeking – DASEIN’s authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole. By now the authenticity of DASEIN is neither an empty term nor an idea which someone has fabricated. But even so, as an authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole, the authentic Being-towards-death which we have deduced existentially still remains a purely existential project for which DASEIN’s attestation is missing. Only when such attestation has been found will our investigation suffice to exhibit (as its problematic requires) an authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole, existentially confirmed and clarified – a potentiality which belongs to DASEIN. For only when this entity has become phenomenally accessible in its authenticity and its totality, will the question of the meaning of the Being of this entity, to whose existence there belongs in general an understanding of Being, be based upon something which will stand any test. BTMR: §60

In our existential Interpretation, the entity which has been presented to us as our theme has DASEIN’s kind of Being, and cannot be pieced together into something present-at-hand out of pieces which are present-at-hand. So long as we do not forget this, every step in our Interpretation must be guided by the idea of existence. What this signifies for the question of the possible connection between anticipation and resoluteness, is nothing less than the demand that we should project these existential phenomena upon the existentiell possibilities which have been delineated in them, and ‘think these possibilities through to the end’ in an existential manner. If we do this, the working-out of anticipatory resoluteness as a potentiality-for-Being-a-whole such that this potentiality is authentic and is possible in an existentiell way, will lose the character of an arbitrary construction. It will have become a way of Interpreting whereby DASEIN is liberated for its uttermost possibility of existence. BTMR: §61

Ontologically, DASEIN is in principle different from everything that is present-at-hand or Real. Its ‘subsistence’ is not based on the substantiality of a substance but on the ‘Self-subsistence’ of the existing Self, whose Being has been conceived as care. The phenomenon of the Self – a phenomenon which is included in care – needs to be defined existentially in a way which is primordial and authentic, in contrast to our preparatory exhibition of the inauthentic they-self. Along with this, we must establish what possible ontological questions are to be directed towards the ‘Self’, if indeed it is neither substance nor subject. BTMR: §61

We have characterized resoluteness as a way of reticently projecting oneself upon one’s ownmost Being-guilty, and exacting anxiety of oneself. Being-guilty belongs to DASEIN’s Being, and signifies the null Being-the-basis of a nullity. The ‘Guilty!’ which belongs to the Being of DASEIN is something that can be neither augmented nor diminished. It comes before any quantification, if the latter has any meaning at all. Moreover, DASEIN is essentially guilty – not just guilty on some occasions, and on other occasions not. Wanting-to-have-a-conscience resolves upon this Being-guilty. To project oneself upon this Being-guilty, which DASEIN is as long as it is, belongs to the very meaning of resoluteness. The existentiell way of taking over this ‘guilt’ in resoluteness, is therefore authentically accomplished only when that resoluteness, in its disclosure of DASEIN, has become so transparent that Being-guilty is understood as something constant. But this understanding is made possible only in so far as DASEIN discloses to itself its potentiality-for-Being, and discloses it ‘right to its end’. Existentially, however, DASEIN’s "Being-at-an-end" implies Being-towards-the-end. As Being-towards-the-end which understands – that is to say, as anticipation of death – resoluteness becomes authentically what it can be. Resoluteness does not just ‘have’ a connection with anticipation, as with something other than itself. It harbours in itself authentic Being-towards-death, as the possible existentiell modality of its own authenticity. This ‘connection’ must be elucidated phenomenally. BTMR: §62

When DASEIN is resolute, it takes over authentically in its existence the fact that it is the null basis of its own nullity. We have conceived death existentially as what we have characterized as the possibility of the impossibility of existence – that is to say, as the utter nullity of DASEIN. Death is not "added on" to DASEIN at its ‘end’; but DASEIN, as care, is the thrown (that is, null) basis for its death. The nullity by which DASEIN’s Being is dominated primordially through and through, is revealed to DASEIN itself in authentic Being-towards-death. Only on the basis of DASEIN’s whole Being does anticipation make Being-guilty manifest. Care harbours in itself both death and guilt equiprimordially. Only in anticipatory resoluteness is the potentiality-for-Being-guilty understood authentically and wholly – that is to say, primordially. BTMR: §62

The call of conscience passes over in its appeal all DASEIN’s ‘worldly’ prestige and potentialities. Relentlessly it individualizes DASEIN down to its potentiality-for-Being-guilty, and exacts of it that it should be this potentiality authentically. The unwavering precision with which DASEIN is thus essentially individualized down to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being, discloses the anticipation of [zum] death as the possibility which is non-relational. Anticipatory resoluteness lets the potentiality-for-Being-guilty, as one’s ownmost non-relational possibility, be struck wholly into the conscience. BTMR: §62

The phenomenon of resoluteness has brought us before the primordial truth of existence. As resolute, DASEIN is revealed to itself in its current factical potentiality-for-Being, and in such a way that DASEIN itself is this revealing and Being-revealed. To any truth, there belongs a corresponding holding-for-true. The explicit appropriating of what has been disclosed or discovered is Being-certain. The primordial truth of existence demands an equiprimordial Being-certain, in which one maintains oneself in what resoluteness discloses. It gives itself the current factical Situation, and brings itself into that Situation. The Situation cannot be calculated in advance or presented like something present-at-hand which is waiting for someone to grasp it. It merely gets disclosed in a free resolving which has not been determined beforehand but is open to the possibility of such determination. What, then, does the certainty which belongs to such resoluteness signify? Such certainty must maintain itself in what is disclosed by the resolution. But this means that it simply cannot become rigid as regards the Situation, but must understand that the resolution, in accordance with its own meaning as a disclosure, must be held open and free for the current factical possibility. The certainty of the resolution signifies that one holds oneself free for the possibility of taking it back – a possibility which is factically necessary. However, such holding-for-true in resoluteness (as the truth of existence) by no means lets us fall back into irresoluteness. On the contrary, this holding-for-true, as a resolute holding-oneself-free for taking back, is authentic resoluteness which resolves to keep repeating itself. Thus, in an existentiell manner, one’s very lostness in irresoluteness gets undermined. The holding-for-true which belongs to resoluteness, tends, in accordance with its meaning, to hold itself free constantly – that is, to hold itself free for DASEIN’s whole potentiality-for-Being. This constant certainty is guaranteed to resoluteness only so that it will relate itself to that possibility of which it can be utterly certain. In its death, DASEIN must simply ‘take back’ everything. Since resoluteness is constantly certain of death – in other words, since it anticipates it – resoluteness thus attains a certainty which is authentic and whole. BTMR: §62

But DASEIN is equiprimordially in the untruth. Anticipatory resoluteness gives DASEIN at the same time the primordial certainty that it has been closed off. In anticipatory resoluteness, DASEIN holds itself open for its constant lostness in the irresoluteness of the "they" – a lostness which is possible from the very basis of its own Being. As a constant possibility of DASEIN, irresoluteness is co-certain. When resoluteness is transparent to itself, it understands that the indefiniteness of one’s potentiality-for-Being is made definite only in a resolution as regards the current Situation. It knows about the indefiniteness by which an entity that exists is dominated through and through. But if this knowing is to correspond to authentic resoluteness, it must itself arise from an authentic disclosure. The indefiniteness of one’s own potentiality-for-Being, even when this potentiality has become certain in a resolution, is first made wholly manifest in Being-towards-death. Anticipation brings DASEIN face to face with a possibility which is constantly certain but which at any moment remains indefinite as to when that possibility will become an impossibility. Anticipation makes it manifest that this entity has been thrown into the indefiniteness of its ‘limit-Situation’; when resolved upon the latter, DASEIN gains its authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole. The indefiniteness of death is primordially disclosed in anxiety. But this primordial anxiety strives to exact resoluteness of itself. It moves out of the way everything which conceals the fact that DASEIN has been abandoned to itself. The "nothing" with which anxiety brings us face to face, unveils the nullity by which DASEIN, in its very basis, is defined; and this basis itself is as thrownness into death. BTMR: §62

The way which we have so far pursued in the analytic of DASEIN has led us to a concrete demonstration of the thesis which was put forward just casually at the beginning – that the entity which in every case we ourselves are, is ontologically that which is farthest. The reason for this lies in care itself. Our Being alongside the things with which we concern ourselves most closely in the ‘world’ – a Being which is falling – guides the everyday way in which DASEIN is interpreted, and covers up ontically DASEIN’s authentic Being, so that the ontology which is directed towards this entity is denied an appropriate basis. Therefore the primordial way in which this entity is presented as a phenomenon is anything but obvious, if even ontology proximally follows the course of the everyday interpretation of DASEIN. The laying-bare of DASEIN’s primordial Being must rather be wrested from DASEIN by following the opposite course from that taken by the falling ontico-ontological tendency of interpretation. BTMR: §63

Yet where are we to find out what makes up the ‘authentic’ existence of DASEIN? Unless we have an existentiell understanding, all analysis of existentiality will remain groundless. Is it not the case that underlying our Interpretation of the authenticity and totality of DASEIN, there is an ontical way of taking existence which may be possible but need not be binding for everyone? Existential Interpretation will never seek to take over any authoritarian pronouncement as to those things which, from an existentiell point of view, are possible or binding. But must it not justify itself in regard to those existentiell possibilities with which it gives ontological Interpretation its ontical basis? If the Being of DASEIN is essentially potentiality-for-Being, if it is Being-free for its ownmost possibilities, and if, in every case, it exists only in freedom for these possibilities or in lack of freedom for them, can ontological Interpretation do anything else than base itself on ontical possibilities – ways of potentiality-for-Being – and project these possibilities upon their ontological possibility? And if, for the most part, DASEIN interprets itself in terms of its lostness in concerning itself with the ‘world’, does not the appropriate way of disclosure for such an entity lie in determining the ontico-existentiell possibilities (and doing so in the manner which we have achieved by following the opposite course) and then providing an existential analysis grounded upon these possibilities? In that case, will not the violence of this projection amount to freeing DASEIN’s undisguised phenomenal content? BTMR: §63

In indicating the formal aspects of the idea of existence we have been guided by the understanding-of-Being which lies in DASEIN itself. Without any ontological transparency, it has nevertheless been revealed that in every case I am myself the entity which we call DASEIN, and that I am so as a potentiality-for-Being for which to be this entity is an issue. DASEIN understands itself as Being-in-the-world, even if it does so without adequate ontological definiteness. Being thus, it encounters entities which have the kind of Being of what is ready-to-hand and present-at-hand. No matter how far removed from an ontological concept the distinction between existence and Reality may be, no matter even if DASEIN proximally understands existence as Reality, DASEIN is not just present-at-hand but has already understood itself, however mythical or magical the interpretation which it gives may be. For otherwise, DASEIN would never ‘live’ in a myth and would not be concerned with magic in ritual and cult. The idea of existence which we have posited gives us an outline of the formal structure of the understanding of DASEIN and does so in a way which is not binding from an existentiell point of view. BTMR: §63

We have indeed already shown, in analysing the structure of understanding in general, that what gets censured inappropriately as a ‘circle’, belongs to the essence and to the distinctive character of understanding as such. In spite of this, if the problematic of fundamental ontology is to have its hermeneutical Situation clarified, our investigation must now come back explicitly to this ‘circular argument’. When it is objected that the existential Interpretation is ‘circular’, it is said that we have ‘presupposed’ the idea of existence and of Being in general, and that DASEIN gets Interpreted ‘accordingly’, so that the idea of Being may be obtained from it. But what does ‘presupposition’ signify? In positing the idea of existence, do we also posit some proposition from which we deduce further propositions about the Being of DASEIN, in accordance with formal rules of consistency? Or does this pre-supposing have the character of an understanding projection, in such a manner indeed that the Interpretation by which such an understanding gets developed, will let that which is to be interpreted put itself into words for the very first time, so that it may decide of its own accord whether, as the entity which it is, it has that state of Being for which it has been disclosed in the projection with regard to its formal aspects? Is there any other way at all by which an entity can put itself into words with regard to its Being? We cannot ever ‘avoid’ a ‘circular’ proof in the existential analytic, because such an analytic does not do any proving at all by the rules of the ‘logic of consistency’. What common sense wishes to eliminate in avoiding the ‘circle’, on the supposition that it is measuring up to the loftiest rigour of scientific investigation, is nothing less than the basic structure of care. Because it is primordially constituted by care, any DASEIN is already ahead of itself. As being, it has in every case already projected itself upon definite possibilities of its existence; and in such existentiell projections it has, in a pre-ontological manner, also projected something like existence and Being. Like all research, the research which wants to develop and conceptualize that kind of Being which belongs to existence, is itself a kind of Being which disclosive DASEIN possesses; can such research be denied this projecting which is essential to DASEIN? BTMR: §63

Through the unity of the items which are constitutive for care – existentiality, facticity, and fallenness – it has become possible to give the first ontological definition for the totality of DASEIN’s structural whole. We have given an existential formula for the structure of care as "ahead-of-itself – Being-already-in (a world) as Being-alongside (entities encountered within-the-world)". We have seen that the care-structure does not first arise from a coupling together, but is articulated all the same. In assessing this ontological result, we have had to estimate how well it satisfies the requirements for a primordial Interpretation of DASEIN. The upshot of these considerations has been that neither the whole of DASEIN nor its authentic potentiality-for-Being has ever been made a theme. The structure of care, however, seems to be precisely where the attempt to grasp the whole of DASEIN as a phenomenon has foundered. The "ahead-of-itself" presented itself as a "not-yet". But when the "ahead-of-itself" which had been characterized as something still outstanding, was considered in genuinely existential manner, it revealed itself as Being-towards-the-end – something which, in the depths of its Being, every DASEIN is. We made it plain at the same time that in the call of conscience care summons DASEIN towards its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. When we came to understand in a primordial manner how this appeal is understood, we saw that the understanding of it manifests itself as anticipatory resoluteness, which includes an authentic potentiality-for-Being-a-whole – a potentiality of DASEIN. Thus the care-structure does not speak against the possibility of Being-a-whole but is the condition for the possibility of such an existentiell potentiality-for-Being. In the course of these analyses, it became plain that the existential phenomena of death, conscience, and guilt are anchored in the phenomenon of care. The totality of the structural whole has become even more richly articulated; and because of this, the existential question of the unity of this totality has become still more urgent. BTMR: §64

How are we to conceive this unity? How can DASEIN exist as a unity in the ways and possibilities of its Being which we have mentioned? Manifestly, it can so exist only in such a way that it is itself this Being in its essential possibilities – that in each case I am this entity. The ‘I’ seems to ‘hold together’ the totality of the structural whole. In the ‘ontology’ of this entity, the ‘I’ and the ‘Self’ have been conceived from the earliest times as the supporting ground (as substance or subject). Even in its preparatory characterization of everydayness, our analytic has already come up against the question of DASEIN’s "who". It has been shown that proximally and for the most part DASEIN is not itself but is lost in the they-self which is an existentiell modification of the authentic Self. The question of the ontological constitution of Selfhood has remained unanswered. In principle, of course, we have already fixed upon a clue for this problem; for if the Self belongs to the essential [wesenhaften] attributes of DASEIN, while DASEIN’s ‘Essence’ ["Essenz"] lies in existence, then "I"-hood and Selfhood must be conceived existentially. On the negative side, it has also been shown that our ontological characterization of the "they" prohibits us from making any use of categories of presence-at-hand (such as substance). It has become clear, in principle, that ontologically care is not to be derived from Reality or to be built up with the categories of Reality. Care already harbours in itself the phenomenon of the Self, if indeed the thesis is correct that the expression ‘care for oneself’ ["Selbstsorge"], would be tautological if it were proposed in conformity with the term "solicitude" [Fürsorge] as care for Others. But in that case the problem of defining ontologically the Selfhood of DASEIN gets sharpened to the question of the existential ‘connection’ between care and Selfhood. BTMR: §64

DASEIN is authentically itself in the primordial individualization of the reticent resoluteness which exacts anxiety of itself. As something that keeps silent, authentic Being-one’s-Self is just the sort of thing that does not keep on saying ‘I’; but in its reticence it ‘is’ that thrown entity as which it can authentically b e. The Self which the reticence of resolute existence unveils is the primordial phenomenal basis for the question as to the Being of the ‘I’. Only if we are oriented phenomenally by the meaning of the Being of the authentic potentiality-for-Being-one’s-Self are we put in a position to discuss what ontological justification there is for treating substantiality, simplicity, and personality as characteristics of Selfhood. In the prevalent way of saying "I", it is constantly suggested that what we have in advance is a Self-Thing, persistently present-at-hand; the ontological question of the Being of the Self must turn away from any such suggestion. BTMR: §64

DASEIN is either authentically or inauthentically disclosed to itself as regards its existence. In existing, DASEIN understands itself; and in such a way, indeed, that this understanding does not merely get something in its grasp, but makes up the existentiell Being of its factical potentiality-for-Being. The Being which is disclosed is that of an entity for which this Being is an issue. The meaning of this Being – that is, of care – is what makes care possible in its Constitution; and it is what makes up primordially the Being of this potentiality-for-Being. The meaning of DASEIN’s Being is not something free-floating which is other than and ‘outside of’ itself, but is the self-understanding DASEIN itself. What makes possible the Being of DASEIN, and therewith its factical existence? BTMR: §65

Anticipatory resoluteness understands DASEIN in its own essential Being-guilty. This understanding means that in existing one takes over Being-guilty; it means being the thrown basis of nullity. But taking over thrownness signifies being DASEIN authentically as it already was. Taking over thrownness, however, is possible only in such a way that the futural DASEIN can be its ownmost ‘as-it-already-was’ – that is to say, its ‘been’ [sein "Gewesen"]. Only in so far as DASEIN is as an "I-am-as-having-been", can DASEIN come towards itself futurally in such a way that it comes back. As authentically futural, DASEIN is authentically as "having been". Anticipation of one’s uttermost and ownmost possibility is coming back understandingly to one’s ownmost "been". Only so far as it is futural can DASEIN be authentically as having been. The character of "having been" arises, in a certain way, from the future. BTMR: §65

Likewise, with the ‘already’ we have in view the existential temporal meaning of the Being of that entity which, in so far as it is, is already something that has been thrown. Only because care is based on the character of "having been", can DASEIN exist as the thrown entity which it is. ‘As long as’ DASEIN factically exists, it is never past [vergangen], but it always is indeed as already having been, in the sense of the "I am-as-having-been". And only as long as DASEIN is, can it be as having been. On the other hand, we call an entity "past", when it is no longer present-at-hand. Therefore DASEIN, in existing, can never establish itself as a fact which is present-at-hand, arising and passing away ‘in the course of time’, with a bit of it past already. DASEIN never ‘finds itself’ except as a thrown Fact. In the state-of-mind in which it finds itself, DASEIN is assailed by itself as the entity which it still is and already was – that is to say, which it constantly is as having been. The primary existential meaning of facticity lies in the character of "having been". In our formulation of the structure of care, the temporal meaning of existentiality and facticity is indicated by the expressions ‘before’ and ‘already’. BTMR: §65

However, the Interpretation of care as temporality cannot remain restricted to the narrow basis obtained so far, even if it has taken us the first steps along our way in viewing DASEIN’s primordial and authentic Being-a-whole. The thesis that the meaning of DASEIN is temporality must be confirmed in the concrete content of this entity’s basic state, as it has been set forth. BTMR: §65

The ontological structure of that entity which, in each case, I myself am, centres in the Self-subsistence [Selbständigkeit] of existence. Because the Self cannot be conceived either as substance or as subject but is grounded in existence, our analysis of the inauthentic Self, the "they", has been left wholly in tow of the preparatory Interpretation of DASEIN. Now that Selfhood has been explicitly taken back into the structure of care, and therefore of temporality, the temporal Interpretation of Self-constancy and non-Self-constancy acquires an importance of its own. This Interpretation needs to be carried through separately and thematically. However, it not only gives us the right kind of insurance against the paralogisms and against ontologically inappropriate questions about the Being of the "I" in general, but it provides at the same time, in accordance with its central function, a more primordial insight into the temporalization-structure of temporality, which reveals itself as the historicality of DASEIN. The proposition, "DASEIN is historical", is confirmed as a fundamental existential ontological assertion. This assertion is far removed from the mere ontical establishment of the fact that DASEIN occurs in a ‘world-history’. But the historicality of DASEIN is the basis for a possible kind of historiological understanding which in turn carries with it the possibility of getting a special grasp of the development of historiology as a science. BTMR: §66

In understanding, one’s own potentiality-for-Being is disclosed in such a way that one’s DASEIN always knows understandingly what it is capable of. It ‘knows’ this, however, not by having discovered some fact, but by maintaining itself in an existentiell possibility. The kind of ignorance which corresponds to this, does not consist in an absence or cessation of understanding, but must be regarded as a deficient mode of the projectedness of one’s potentiality-for-Being. Existence can be questionable. If it is to be possible for something ‘to be in question’ [das "In-Frage-stehcn"], a disclosedness is needed. When one understands oneself projectively in an existentiell possibility, the future underlies this understanding, and it does so as a coming-towards-oneself out of that current possibility as which one’s DASEIN exists. The future makes ontologically possible an entity which is in such a way that it exists understandingly in its potentiality-for-Being. Projection is basically futural; it does not primarily grasp the projected possibility thematically just by having it in view, but it throws itself into it as a possibility. In each case DASEIN is understandingly in the way that it can be. Resoluteness has turned out to be a kind of existing which is primordial and authentic. Proximally and for the most part, to be sure, DASEIN remains irresolute; that is to say, it remains closed off in its ownmost potentiality-for-Being, to which it brings itself only when it has been individualized. This implies that temporality does not temporalize itself constantly out of the authentic future. This inconstancy, however, does not mean that temporality sometimes lacks a future, but rather that the temporalizing of the future takes various forms. BTMR: §68

To designate the authentic future terminologically we have reserved the expression "anticipation". This indicates that DASEIN, existing authentically, lets itself come towards itself as its ownmost potentiality-for-Being – that the future itself must fist win itself, not from a Present, but from the inauthentic future. If we are to provide a formally undifferentiated term for the future, we may use the one with which we have designated the first structural item of care – the "ahead-of-itself". Factically, DASEIN is constantly ahead of itself, but inconstantly anticipatory with regard to its existentiell possibility. BTMR: §68

How is the inauthentic future to be contrasted with this? Just as the authentic future is revealed in resoluteness, the inauthentic future, as an ecstatical mode, can reveal itself only if we go back ontologically from the inauthentic understanding of everyday concern to its existential-temporal meaning. As care, DASEIN is essentially ahead of itself. Proximally and for the most part, concernful Being-in-the-world understands itself in terms of that with which it is concerned. Inauthentic understanding projects itself upon that with which one can concern oneself; or upon what is feasible, urgent, or indispensable in our everyday business. But that with which we concern ourselves is as it is for the sake of that potentiality-for-Being which cares. This potentiality lets DASEIN come towards itself in its concernful Being-alongside that with which it is concerned. DASEIN does not come towards itself primarily in its ownmost non-relational potentiality-for-Being, but it awaits this concernfully in terms of that which yields or denies the object of its concern. DASEIN comes towards itself from that with which it concerns itself. The inauthentic future has the character of awaiting. One’s concernful understanding of oneself as they-self in terms of what one does, has its possibility ‘based’ upon this ecstatical mode of the future. And only because factical DASEIN is thus awaiting its potentiality-for-Being, and is awaiting this potentiality in terms of that with which it concerns itself, can it expect anything and wait for it [erwarten und warten auf...]. In each case some sort of awaiting must have disclosed the horizon and the range from which something can be expected. Expecting is founded upon awaiting, and is a mode of that future which temporalizes itself authentically as anticipation. Hence there lies in anticipation a more primordial Being-towards-death than in the concernful expecting of it. BTMR: §68

Understanding, as existing in the potentiality-for-Being, however it may have been projected, is primarily futural. But it would not temporalize itself if it were not temporal – that is, determined with equal primordiality by having been and by the Present. The way in which the latter ecstasis helps constitute inauthentic understanding, has already been made plain in a rough and ready fashion. Everyday concern understands itself in terms of that potentiality-for-Being which confronts it as coming from its possible success or failure with regard to whatever its object of concern may be. Corresponding to the inauthentic future (awaiting), there is a special way of Being-alongside the things with which one concerns oneself. This way of Being-alongside is the Present – the "waiting-towards"; this ecstatical mode reveals itself if we adduce for comparison this very same ecstasis, but in the mode of authentic temporality. To the anticipation which goes with resoluteness, there belongs a Present in accordance with which a resolution discloses the Situation. In resoluteness, the Present is not only brought back from distraction with the objects of one’s closest concern, but it gets held in the future and in having been. That Present which is held in authentic temporality and which thus is authentic itself, we call the "moment of vision". This term must be understood in the active sense as an ecstasis. It means the resolute rapture with which DASEIN is carried away to whatever possibilities and circumstances are encountered in the Situation as possible objects of concern, but a rapture which is held in resoluteness. The moment of vision is a phenomenon which in principle can not be clarified in terms of the "now" [dem Zetzt]. The "now" is a temporal phenomenon which belongs to time as within-time-ness: the "now" ‘in which’ something arises, passes away, or is present-at-hand. ‘In the moment of vision’ nothing can occur; but as an authentic Present or waiting-towards, the moment of vision permits us to encounter for the first time what can be ‘in a time’ as ready-to-hand or present-at-hand. BTMR: §68

The temporality of anxiety is peculiar; for anxiety is grounded primordially in having been, and only out of this do the future and the Present temporalize themselves; in this peculiar temporality is demonstrated the possibility of that power which is distinctive for the mood of anxiety. In this, DASEIN is taken all the way back to its naked uncanniness, and becomes fascinated by it. This fascination, however, not only takes DASEIN back from its ‘worldly’ possibilities, but at the same time gives it the possibility of an authentic potentiality-for-Being. BTMR: §68

If, moreover, thematizing modifies and Articulates the understanding of Being, then, in so far as DASEIN, the entity which thematizes, exists, it must already understand something like Being. Such understanding of Being can remain neutral. In that case readiness-to-hand and presence-at-hand have not yet been distinguished; still less have they been conceived ontologically. But if DASEIN is to be able to have any dealings with a context of equipment, it must understand something like an involvement, even if it does not do so thematically: a world must have been disclosed to it. With DASEIN’s factical existence, this world has been disclosed, if DASEIN indeed exists essentially as Being-in-the-world. And if DASEIN’s Being is completely grounded in temporality, then temporality must make possible Being-in-the-world and therewith DASEIN’s transcendence; this transcendence in turn provides the support for concernful Being alongside entities within-the-world, whether this Being is theoretical or practical. BTMR: §69

Circumspective concern includes the understanding of a totality of involvements, and this understanding is based upon a prior understanding of the relationships of the "in-order-to", the" towards-which", the "towards-this", and the "for-the-sake-of". The interconnection of these relationships has been exhibited earlier as "significance". Their unity makes up what we call the "world". The question arises of how anything like the world in its unity with DASEIN is ontologically possible. In what way must the world be, if DASEIN is to be able to exist as Being-in-the-World? BTMR: §69

DASEIN exists for the sake of a potentiality-for-Being of itself. In existing, it has been thrown; and as something thrown, it has been delivered over to entities which it needs in order to be able to be as it is – namely, for the sake of itself. In so far as DASEIN exists factically, it understands itself in the way its "for-the-sake-of-itself" is thus connected with some current "in-order-to". That inside which existing DASEIN understands itself, is ‘there’ along with its factical existence. That inside which one primarily understands oneself has DASEIN’s kind of Being. DASEIN is its world existingly. BTMR: §69

We have defined DASEIN’s Being as "care". The ontological meaning of "care" is temporality. We have shown that temporality constitutes the disclosedness of the "there", and we have shown how it does so. In the disclosedness of the "there" the world is disclosed along with it. The unity of significance – that is, the ontological constitution of the world – must then likewise be grounded in temporality. The existential-temporal condition for the possibility of the world lies in the fact that temporality, as an ecstatical unity, has something like a horizon. Ecstases are not simply raptures in which one gets carried away. Rather, there belongs to each ecstasis a ‘whither’ to which one is carried away. This "whither" of the ecstasis we call the "horizonal schema". In each of the three ecstases the ecstatical horizon is different. The schema in which DASEIN comes towards itself futurally, whether authentically or inauthentically, is the "for-the-sake-of-itself". The schema in which DASEIN is disclosed to itself in a state-of-mind as thrown, is to be taken as that in the face of which it has been thrown and that to which it has been abandoned. This characterizes the horizonal schema of what has been. In existing for the sake of itself in abandonment to itself as something that has been thrown, DASEIN, as Being-alongside, is at the same time making present. The horizonal schema for the Present is defined by the "in-order-to". BTMR: §69

Just as the Present arises in the unity of the temporalizing of temporality out of the future and having been, the horizon of a Present temporalizes itself equiprimordially with those of the future and of having been. In so far as DASEIN temporalizes itself, a world is too. In temporalizing itself with regard to its Being as temporality, DASEIN is essentially ‘in a world’, by reason of the ecstatico-horizonal constitution of that temporality. The world is neither present-at-hand nor ready-to-hand, but temporalizes itself in temporality. It ‘is’, with the "outside-of-itself" of the ecstases, ‘there’. If no DASEIN exists, no world is ‘there’ either. BTMR: §69

When Being-in-the-world is traced back to the ecstatico-horizonal unity of temporality, the existential-ontological possibility of this basic state of DASEIN is made intelligible. At the same time it becomes plain that a concrete working-out of the world-structure in general and its possible variations can be tackled only if the ontology of possible entities within-the-world is oriented securely enough by clarifying the idea of Being in general. If an Interpretation of this idea is to be possible, the temporality of DASEIN must be exhibited beforehand; here our characterization of Being-in-the-world will be of service. BTMR: §69

We must now make an existential-analytical inquiry as to the temporal conditions, for the possibility of the spatiality that is characteristic of DASEIN – the spatiality upon which in turn is founded the uncovering of space within-the-world. We must first remember in what way DASEIN is spatial. DASEIN can be spatial only as care, in the sense of existing as factically falling. Negatively this means that DASEIN is never present-at-hand in space, not even proximally. DASEIN does not fill up a bit of space as a Real Thing or item of equipment would, so that the boundaries dividing it from the surrounding space would themselves just define that space spatially. DASEIN takes space in; this is to be understood literally. It is by no means just present-at-hand in a bit of space which its body fills up. In existing, it has already made room for its own leeway. It determines its own location in such a manner that it comes back from the space it has made room for to the ‘place’ which it has reserved. To be able to say that DASEIN is present-at-hand at a position in space, we must first take [auffassen] this entity in a way which is ontologically inappropriate. Nor does the distinction between the ‘spatiality’ of an extended Thing and that of DASEIN lie in the fact that DASEIN knows about space; for taking space in [das Raum-einnehmen] is so far from identical with a ‘representing’ of the spatial, that it is presupposed by it instead. Neither may DASEIN’s spatiality be interpreted as an imperfection which adheres to existence by reason of the fatal ‘linkage of the spirit to a body’. On the contrary, because DASEIN is ‘spiritual’, and only because of this, it can be spatial in a way which remains essentially impossible for any extended corporeal Thing. BTMR: §70

"Everydayness" manifestly stands for that way of existing in which DASEIN maintains itself ‘every day’ ["alle Tage"]. And yet this ‘every day’ does not signify the sum of those ‘days’ which have been allotted to DASEIN in its ‘lifetime’. Though this ‘every day’ is not to be understood calendrically, there is still an overtone of some such temporal character in the signification of the ‘everyday’ ["Alltag"]. But what we have primarily in mind in the expression "everydayness" is a definite "how" of existence by which DASEIN is dominated through and through ‘for life’ ["zeitlebens"]. In our analyses we have often used the expression ‘proximally and for the most part’. ‘Proximally’ signifies the way in which DASEIN is ‘manifest’ in the "with-one-another" of publicness, even if ‘at bottom’ everydayness is precisely something which, in an existentiell manner, it has ‘surmounted’. ‘For the most part’ signifies the way in which DASEIN shows itself for Everyman, not always, but ‘as a rule’. BTMR: §71

That which is ontically so familiar in the way DASEIN has been factically interpreted that we never pay any heed to it, hides enigma after enigma existential-ontologically. The ‘natural’ horizon for starting the existential analytic of DASEIN is only seemingly self-evident. BTMR: §71

What seems ‘simpler’ than to characterize the ‘connectedness of life’ between birth and death? It consists of a sequence of Experiences ‘in time’. But if one makes a more penetrating study of this way of characterizing the ‘connectedness’ in question, and especially of the ontological assumptions behind it, the remarkable upshot is that, in this sequence of Experiences, what is ‘really’ ‘actual’ is, in each case, just that Experience which is present-at-hand ‘in the current "now" ’, while those Experiences which have passed away or are only coming along, either are no longer or are not yet ‘actual’. DASEIN traverses the span of time granted to it between the two boundaries, and it does so in such a way that, in each case, it is ‘actual’ only in the "now", and hops, as it were, through the sequence of "flows" of its own ‘time’. Thus it is said that DASEIN is ‘temporal’. In spite of the constant changing of these Experiences, the Self maintains itself throughout with a certain selfsameness. Opinions diverge as to how that which thus persists is to be defined, and how one is to determine what relation it may possibly have to the changing Experiences. The Being of this perseveringly changing connectedness of Experiences remains indefinite. But at bottom, whether one likes it or not, in this way of characterizing the connectedness of life, one has posited something present-at-hand ‘in time’, though something that is obviously ‘un-Thinglike’. BTMR: §72

DASEIN does not fill up a track or stretch ‘of life’ – one which is somehow present-at-hand – with the phases of its momentary actualities. It stretches itself along in such a way that its own Being is constituted in advance as a stretching-along. The ‘between’ which relates to birth and death already lies in the Being of DASEIN. On the other hand, it is by no means the case that DASEIN ‘is’ actual in a point of time, and that, apart from this, it is ‘surrounded’ by the non-actuality of its birth and death. Understood existentially, birth is not and never is something past in the sense of something no longer present-at-hand; and death is just as far from having the kind of Being of something still outstanding, not yet present-at-hand but coming along. Factical DASEIN exists as born; and, as born, it is already dying, in the sense of Being-towards-death. As long as DASEIN factically exists, both the ‘ends’ and their ‘between’ are, and they are in the only way which is possible on the basis of DASEIN’s Being as care. Thrownness and that Being towards death in which one either flees it or anticipates it, form a unity; and in this unity birth and death are ‘connected’ in a manner characteristic of DASEIN. As care, DASEIN is the ‘between’. BTMR: §72

In temporality, however, the constitutive totality of care has a possible basis for its unity. Accordingly it is within the horizon of DASEIN’s temporal constitution that we must approach the ontological clarification of the ‘connectedness of life’ – that is to say, the stretching-along, the movement, and the persistence which are specific for DASEIN. The movement [Bewegtheit] of existence is not the motion [Bewegung] of something present-at-hand. It is definable in terms of the way DASEIN stretches along. The specific movement in which DASEIN is stretched along and stretches itself along, we call its "historizing". The question of DASEIN’s ‘connectedness’ is the ontological problem of DASEIN’s historizing. To lay bare the structure of historizing, and the existential-temporal conditions of its possibility, signifies that one has achieved an ontological understanding of historicality. BTMR: §72

The four significations are connected in that they relate to man as the ‘subject’ of events. How is the historizing character of such events to be defined? Is historizing a sequence of processes, an ever-changing emergence and disappearance of events? In what way does this historizing of history belong to DASEIN? Is DASEIN already factically ‘present-at-hand’ to begin with, so that on occasion it can get ‘into a history’? Does DASEIN first become historical by getting intertwined with events and circumstances? Or is the Being of DASEIN constituted first of all by historizing, so that anything like circumstances, events, and vicissitudes is ontologically possible only because DASEIN is historical in its Being? Why is it that the function of the past gets particularly stressed when the DASEIN which historizes ‘in time’ is characterized ‘temporally’? BTMR: §73

Thus the historical character of the antiquities that are still preserved is grounded in the ‘past’ of that DASEIN to whose world they belonged. But according to this, only ‘past’ DASEIN would be historical, not DASEIN ‘in the present’. However, can DASEIN be past at all, if we define ‘past’ as ‘now no longer either present-at-hand or ready-to-hand’? Manifestly, DASEIN can never be past, not because DASEIN is non-transient, but because it essentially can never be present-at-hand. Rather, if it is, it exists. A DASEIN which no longer exists, however, is not past, in the ontologically strict sense; it is rather "having-been-there" [da-gewesen]. The antiquities which are still present-at-hand have a character of ‘the past’ and of history by reason of the fact that they have belonged as equipment to a world that has been – the world of a DASEIN that has been there – and that they have been derived from that world. This DASEIN is what is primarily historical. But does DASEIN first become historical in that it is no longer there? Or is it not historical precisely in so far as it factically exists? Is DASEIN just something that "has been" in the sense of "having been there", or has it been as something futural which is making present – that is to say, in the temporalizing of its temporality? BTMR: §73

It will be said that these deliberations have been rather petty. No one denies that at bottom human DASEIN is the primary ‘subject’ of history; and the ordinary conception of history, which we have cited, says so plainly enough. But with the thesis that ‘DASEIN is historical’, one has in view not just the ontical Fact that in man we are presented with a more or less important ‘atom’ in the workings of world-history, and that he remains the plaything of circumstances and events. This thesis raises the problem: to what extent and on the basis of what ontological conditions, does historicality belong, as an essential constitutive state, to the subjectivity of the ‘historical’ subject? BTMR: §73

DASEIN can be reached by the blows of fate only because in the depths of its Being DASEIN is fate in the sense we have described. Existing fatefully in the resoluteness which hands itself down, DASEIN has been disclosed as Being-in-the-world both for the ‘fortunate’ circumstances which ‘come its way’ and for the cruelty of accidents. Fate does not first arise from the clashing together of events and circumstances. Even one who is irresolute gets driven about by these – more so than one who has chosen; and yet he can ‘have’ no fate. BTMR: §74

That which we have hitherto been characterizing as "historicality" to conform with the kind of historizing which lies in anticipatory resoluteness, we now designate as DASEIN’s "authentic historicality". From the phenomena of handing down and repeating, which are rooted in the future, it has become plain why the historizing of authentic history lies preponderantly in having been. But it remains all the more enigmatic in what way this historizing, as fate, is to constitute the whole ‘connectedness’ of DASEIN from its birth to its death. How can recourse to resoluteness bring us any enlightenment? Is not each resolution just one more single ‘Experience’ in the sequence of the whole connectedness of our Experiences? Is the ‘connectedness’ of authentic historizing to consist, let us say, of an uninterrupted sequence of resolutions? Why is it that the question of how the ‘connectedness of life’ is Constituted finds no adequate and satisfying answer? Is not our investigation overhasty? Does it not, in the end, hang too much on the answer, without first having tested the legitimacy of the question? Nothing is so plain from the course of the existential analytic so far, as the Fact that the ontology of DASEIN is always falling back upon the allurements of the way in which Being is ordinarily understood. The only way of encountering this fact methodologically is by studying the source of the question of how DASEIN’s connectedness is Constituted, no matter how ‘obvious’ this question may be, and by determining within what ontological horizon it moves. BTMR: §74

Proximally and for the most part, DASEIN understands itself in terms of that which it encounters in the environment and that with which it is circumspectively concerned. This understanding is not just a bare taking cognizance of itself, such as accompanies all DASEIN’s ways of behaving. Understanding signifies one’s projecting oneself upon one’s current possibility of Being-in-the-world; that is to say, it signifies existing as this possibility. Thus understanding, as common sense, constitutes even the inauthentic existence of the "they". When we are with one another in public, our everyday concern does not encounter just equipment and work; it likewise encounters what is ‘given’ along with these: ‘affairs’, undertakings, incidents, mishaps. The ‘world’ belongs to everyday trade and traffic as the soil from which they grow and the arena where they are displayed. When we are with one another in public, the Others are encountered in activity of such a kind that one is ‘in the swim’ with it ‘oneself’. One is acquainted with it, discusses it, encourages it, combats it, retains it, and forgets it, but one always does so primarily with regard to what is getting done and what is ‘going to come of it’ [was... "herausspringt"]. We compute the progress which the individual DASEIN has made – his stoppages, readjustments, and ‘output’; and we do so proximally in terms of that with which he is concerned – its course, its status, its changes, its availability. No matter how trivial it may be to allude to the way in which DASEIN is understood in everyday common sense, ontologically this understanding is by no means transparent. But in that case, why should not DASEIN’s ‘connectedness’ be defined in terms of what it is concerned with, and what it ‘Experiences’? Do not equipment and work and every thing which DASEIN dwells alongside, belong to ‘history’ too? If not, is the historizing of history just the isolated running-off of ‘streams of Experience’ in individual subjects? BTMR: §75

This question does not ask how DASEIN gains such a unity of connectedness that the sequence of ‘Experiences’ which has ensued and is still ensuing can subsequently be linked together; it asks rather in which of its own kinds of Being DASEIN loses itself in such a manner that it must, as it were, only subsequently pull itself together out of its dispersal, and think up for itself a unity in which that "together" is embraced. Our lostness in the "they" and in the world-historical has earlier been revealed as a fleeing in the face of death. Such fleeing makes manifest that Being-towards-death is a basic attribute of care. Anticipatory resoluteness brings this Being-towards-death into authentic existence. The historizing of this resoluteness, however, is the repetition of the heritage of possibilities by handing these down to oneself in anticipation; and we have Interpreted this historizing as authentic historicality. Is perhaps the whole of existence stretched along in this historicality in a way which is primordial and not lost, and which has no need of connectedness? The Self’s resoluteness against the inconstancy of distraction, is in itself a steadiness which has been stretched along – the steadiness with which DASEIN as fate ‘incorporates’ into its existence birth and death and their ‘between’, and holds them as thus ‘incorporated’, so that in such constancy DASEIN is indeed in a moment of vision for what is world-historical in its current Situation. BTMR: §75

But in so far as DASEIN’s Being is historical – that is to say, in so far as by reason of its ecstatico-horizonal temporality it is open in its character of "having-been" – the way is in general prepared for such thematizing of the ‘past’ as can be accomplished in existence. And because DASEIN, and only DASEIN, is primordially historical, that which historiological thematizing presents as a possible object for research, must have the kind of Being of DASEIN which has-been-there. Along with any factical DASEIN as Being-in-the-world, there is also, in each case, world-history. If DASEIN is there no longer, then the world too is something that has-been-there. This is not in conflict with the fact that, all the same, what was formerly ready-to-hand within-the-world does not yet pass away, but becomes something that one can, in a Present, come across ‘historiologically’ as something which has not passed away and which belongs to the world that has-been-there. BTMR: §76

But what does it signify to say that DASEIN is ‘factual’? If DASEIN is ‘really’ actual only in existence, then its ‘factuality’ is constituted precisely by its resolute projection of itself upon a chosen potentiality-for-Being. But if so, that which authentically has-been-there ‘factually’ is the existentiell possibility in which fate, destiny, and world-history have been factically determined. Because in each case existence is only as factically thrown, historiology will disclose the quiet force of the possible with greater penetration the more simply and the more concretely having-been-in-the-world is understood in terms of its possibility, and ‘only’ presented as such. BTMR: §76

As historical, DASEIN is possible only by reason of its temporality, and temporality temporalizes itself in the ecstatico-horizonal unity of its raptures. DASEIN exists authentically as futural in resolutely disclosing a possibility which it has chosen. Coming back resolutely to itself it is, by repetition, open for the ‘monumental’ possibilities of human existence. The historiology which arises from such historicality is ‘monumental’. As in the process of having been, DASEIN has been delivered over to its thrownness. When the possible is made one’s own by repetition, there is adumbrated at the same time the possibility of reverently preserving the existence that has-been-there, in which the possibility seized upon has become manifest. Thus authentic historiology, as monumental, is ‘antiquarian’ too. DASEIN temporalizes itself in the way the future and having been are united in the Present. The Present discloses the "today" authentically, and of course as the moment of vision. But in so far as this "today" has been interpreted in terms of understanding a possibility of existence which has been seized upon – an understanding which is repetitive in a futural manner – authentic historiology becomes a way in which the "today" gets deprived of its character as present; in other words, it becomes a way of painfully detaching oneself from the falling publicness of the ‘today". As authentic, the historiology which is both monumental and antiquarian is necessarily a critique of the ‘Present’. Authentic historicality is the foundation for the possibility of uniting these three ways of historiology. But the ground on which authentic historiology is founded is temporality as the existential meaning of the Being of care. BTMR: §76

It is not by chance that Yorck calls those entities which are not historical, simply the "ontical". This just reflects the unbroken dominion of the traditional ontology, which, as derived from the ancient way of formulating the question of Being, narrows down the ontological problematic in principle and holds it fact. The problem of differentiating between the ontical and the Historical cannot be worked out as a problem for research unless we have made sure in advance what is the clue to it, by clarifying, through fundamental ontology, the question of the meaning of Being in general. Thus it becomes plain in what sense the preparatory existential-temporal analytic of DASEIN is resolved to foster the spirit of Count Yorck in the service of Dilthey’s work. BTMR: §77

The concern which awaits, retains, and makes present, is one which ‘allows itself’ so much time; and it assigns itself this time concernfully, even without determining the time by any specific reckoning, and before any such reckoning has been done. Here time dates itself in one’s current mode of allowing oneself time concernfully; and it does so in terms of those very matters with which one concerns oneself environmentally, and which have been disclosed in the understanding with its accompanying state-of-mind – in terms of what one does ‘all day long’. The more DASEIN is awaitingly absorbed in the object of its concern and forgets itself in not awaiting itself, the more does even the time which it ‘allows’ itself remain covered up by this way of ‘allowing’. When DASEIN is ‘living along’ in an everyday concernful manner, it just never understands itself as running along in a Continuously enduring sequence of pure ‘nows’. By reason of this covering up, the time which DASEIN allows itself has gaps in it, as it were. Often we do not bring a ‘day’ together again when we come back to the time which we have ‘used’. But the time which has gaps in it does not go to pieces in this lack-of-togetherness, which is rather a mode of that temporality which has already been disclosed and stretched along ecstatically. The manner in which the time we have ‘allowed’ ‘runs its course’, and the way in which concern more or less explicitly assigns itself that time, can be properly explained as phenomena only if, on the one hand, we avoid the theoretical ‘representation’ of a Continuous stream of "nows", and if, on the other hand, the possible ways in which DASEIN assigns itself time and allows itself time are to be conceived of as determined primarily in terms of how DASEIN, in a manner corresponding to its current existence, ‘has’ its time. BTMR: §79

The Being of DASEIN is care. This entity exists fallingly as something that has been thrown. Abandoned to the ‘world’ which is discovered with its factical "there", and concernfully submitted to it, DASEIN awaits its potentiality-for-Being-in-the-world; it awaits it in such a manner that it ‘reckons’ on and ‘reckons’ with whatever has an involvement for the sake of this potentiality-for-Being – an involvement which, in the end, is a distinctive one. Everyday circumspective Being-in-the-world needs the possibility of sight (and this means that it needs brightness) if it is to deal concernfully with what is ready-to-hand within the present-at-hand. With the factical disclosedness of DASEIN’s world, Nature has been uncovered for DASEIN. In its thrownness DASEIN has been surrendered to the changes of day and night. Day with its brightness gives it the possibility of sight; night takes this away. BTMR: §80

But wherein are grounded this levelling-off of world-time and this covering-up of temporality? In the Being of DASEIN itself, which we have, in a preparatory manner, Interpreted as care. Thrown and falling, DASEIN is proximally and for the most part lost in that with which it concerns itself. In this lostness, however, DASEIN’s fleeing in the face of that authentic existence which has been characterized as "anticipatory resoluteness", has made itself known; and this is a fleeing which covers up. In this concernful fleeing lies a fleeing in the face of death – that is, a looking-away from the end of Being-in-the-world. This looking-away from it, is in itself a mode of that Being-towards-the-end which is ecstatically futural. The inauthentic temporality of everyday DASEIN as it falls, must, as such a looking-away from finitude, fail to recognize authentic futurity and therewith temporality in general. And if indeed the way in which DASEIN is ordinarily understood is guided by the "they", only so can the self-forgetful ‘representation’ of the ‘infinity’ of public time be strengthened. The "they" never dies because it cannot die; for death is in each case mine, and only in anticipatory resoluteness does it get authentically understood in an existentiell manner. Nevertheless, the "they", which never dies and which misunderstands Being-towards-the-end, gives a characteristic interpretation to fleeing in the face of death. To the very end ‘it always has more time’. Here a way of "having time" in the sense that one can lose it makes itself known. ‘Right now, this! then that! And that is barely over, when…’ Here it is not as if the finitude of time were getting understood; quite the contrary, for concern sets out to snatch as much as possible from the time which still keeps coming and ‘goes on’. Publicly, time is something which everyone takes and can take. In the everyday way in which we are with one another, the levelled-off sequence of "nows" remains completely unrecognizable as regards its origin in the temporality of the individual DASEIN. How is ‘time’ in its course to be touched even the least bit when a man who has been present-at-hand ‘in time’ no longer exists? Time goes on, just as indeed it already ‘was’ when a man ‘came into life’. The only time one knows is the public time which has been levelled off and which belongs to everyone – and that means, to nobody. BTMR: §81

Why do we say that time passes away, when we do not say with just as much emphasis that it arises? Yet with regard to the pure sequence of "nows" we have as much right to say one as the other. When DASEIN talks of time’s passing away, it understands, in the end, more of time than it wants to admit; that is to say, the temporality in which world-time temporalizes itself has not been completely closed off, no matter how much it may get covered up. Our talk about time’s passing-away gives expression to this ‘experience’: time does not let itself be halted. This ‘experience’ in turn is possible only because the halting of time is something that we want. Herein lies an inauthentic awaiting of ‘moments’ – an awaiting in which these are already forgotten as they glide by. The awaiting of inauthentic existence – the awaiting which forgets as it makes present – is the condition for the possibility of the ordinary experience of time’s passing-away. Because DASEIN is futural in the "ahead-of-itself", it must, in awaiting, understand the sequence of "nows" as one which glides by as it passes away. DASEIN knows fugitive time in terms of its ‘fugitive’ knowledge about its death. In the kind of talk which emphasizes time’s passing away, the finite futurity of DASEIN’s temporality is publicly reflected. And because even in talk about time’s passing away, death can remain covered up, time shows itself as a passing-away ‘in itself’. BTMR: §81

Submitted on:  Thu, 29-Jul-2021, 19:26